Northern Kentucky University Department of English Spring 2017 table of CONTENTS A publication of Northern Kentucky University’s Department of English ENG 584

Gary Walton 01 Melissa Moon on Writing Love Poems Gary Walton 02 The Circle of Life Nathan Singer 03 Dog Thunder Blues Nicci Mechler 09 How to Stargaze Dangerously Nicci Mechler 10 Remains Nicci Mechler 11 Potable Water Alumni Author Profile 12 Brian Hershey Shae Hall 13 Under the Willow Tree Keith Wilson 16 Field Notice Keith Wilson 19 How to Express Mixed Emotions on a Standardized Test CB Droege 20 Wrecks Emily Vater 24 The Woman Beneath the Sea Alumni Author Profile 27 Ryan Clark Amber Whitley 28 In the Waiting Room Amber Whitley 29 Talk of Sex and Politics in Central Asia Alumni Author Profile LANDRUM LIGHTS 32 R.L. Barth Landrum Lights is an anthology of NKU alumni Mary Anne Reese poetry, fiction, and creative 33 Down Deep nonfiction edited and compiled by the students Mary Anne Reese of Northern Kentucky 34 Where I Am From* University’s English 584 course, Literary Publishing Patrick McGee and Editing, presented 35 The Castaway in spring 2017 under the faculty guidance of P. Ryan Krebiehl Andrew Miller. 39 I Used to Be in the Practice of Dreaming Nikki Moore 41 My Sister’s Bones Nikki Moore 42 Borders Nikki Moore 43 Gravity of Her Stephanie Knipper 44 Modeling Life Alumni Author Profile 51 Jocelyn Drake Matthew Hare 52 Dank Memes in Vanilla City Melissa Moon on Writing Love Poems

“Are you brave enough to Write it,” she asked with A smirk, “Can you put it

Down in black and white— Red and white, if you pierce The skin—perhaps flood the

Page with scarlet—just open A vein—I’ve done it lots of Times—just look at me, I’m

Fine, except for the scars, on My fingertips and, of course, Over my heart—and the

Deformities—each kiss takes Its toll, you know. Yes, I can See it in your bruises—the tears

Mean nothing that don’t burn Deep enough to excoriate The skin like lava flowing

Down a virgin meadow— Already I can feel you inch Toward the door trying to

Escape—do you really think You can survive this, our Little secret—it will only

Make sense if you tell the World—do it and don’t Look back.”

Gary Walton graduated from NKU with his BA in English. He then went on to receive his PhD from The George Washington University. He is an Associate Professor of Literature at NKU and an editor of the Journal of Kentucky Studies.

1 The Circle of Life

Birthing these poems Is like a mouse pooping A Chinese lantern,

Bright, fragile, illuminated, Capable of fiery pinwheels And rockets rising into

The black night, exploding Into sweet showers Of golden sparklers

Or an effervescent diorama Of desire, an emotional phalanx Rushing forth and tumbling

Into itself like phantasmagoric Russian nesting dolls or Electric origami twisted

Over and through like Neon tubes marking The trail, dotting the highway,

Brightening the mind like Sheet lightning framing the Past in stark silhouette to be

Safely stored in a scrapbook Or curio cabinet with other Curiosities until needed

To share like a rare vintage With special guests, or alas To mark down at the estate sale

After the funeral or wrestle away To the land fill, where they Can decompose like notes

Set free from a musical score To fertilize a field of wild flowers That some studious bees Can read in the summer sun.

2 sure nuff know them by the Hell they unleash. O preach’m now… It were the end of May, nineteen-hunnet- twenny-one. Back then they call the Greenwood side of Tulsa the “Negro Wall Street,” and me and Dog Thunder Blues mine, we was right there in that good life. Bertie, she ten-year-old at that time, and Ethel just Baby did you see that fire burnin’ turning thirteen that day of the 31st. Our father, Straight up in that black Oklahoma sky he run his very own shoe store, and us four we O now did you see that fire burnin’ all done our share round the shop. Had usselves Straight up in that black Oklahoma sky a real nice place right upstairs, yes, we did. Lord I seen them buildings all come-a crashin’ down My two sisters and me, we was setting places And I reckon some body gots to die… for Ethel birthday supper (on that same kitchen table Mama died on giving birth to yours truly in’t but two things my father left for me in seven years before) when the first shots rung out. this world: a beat up old no-name six string, “Daddy,” Ethel say with a start, “what that Aand a .38 Smith & Wesson. Just like old man I noise out yonder?!” keeps the pistol stowed away inna same guitar “Ethel, you take your brother and sister to the case I now tote cross my back. Everywhere I go. back bedroom and you hide under that bed now. Heavy load, sure nuff, but it done served me And don’t you make no sound, hear!” well. “But Daddy!” Most folk know me as Plow Boy Lewis. Been “Now, girl! Don’t you make a peep and don’t also called the Oklahoma Ox from time to time. come out ‘til I says! GO NOW!” But to other guitar pickers, this here Big Junior We run off quick as jackrabbits as old man Slides at your service. Yes indeed. I can sings and snatch up his pump-action shotgun and head plays any old tune you might like to hear, and on downstairs and on outside. My sisters both swearing on a stack of Bibles, it won’t be like crying, shaking and quaking, and I had a mind to nothing you ever done heard before. You see, do likewise. But them tears just ain’t come. Froze when I gets to playing this here guitar I keeps solid and still, sure nuff. Old man said don’t a three-inch length of brass pipe on my ring make a peep, and I weren’t bout to. Huddled finger, and a sawed-off bottle neck right there inna dark under that bed petrified like three little onna middle. I’m the onliest one who play that old hound dogs in a thunderstorm we could hear way, so far, I ever seen. Give me a real special it all coming down outside: screaming, gunfire, sound when I switches back and forth tween the busting up like war. And the louder it grow the two, howling like a cold wind or grinding like a hotter it done got. Damn blasted hot. I knew they buzzsaw blade. Ain’t no gimmick or stage trick, done splitted Hell wide open outside. you understand. A heavy boot heel on my right “O Daddy…Daddy…” Bertie got to sobbing, hand nigh on to fourteen year ago, that there “What if he don’t never come back?” were the mother of my invention. Since then “Hush up that mess, Bertie,” Ethel say. them two fingers been stiff as copper rods, and As for me, I ain’t had no words of comfort nor I can’t fret no chord or ball up a fist to save my words of fear. I ain’t have no words at all. soul. All on count of a man who come to call one “Imma catch me a look,” Ethel say, and she hot black night in Tulsa. done slid out from under the bed. Just then the door slam open, and pale as I ain’t killed no man, Lord death, two white mens lumber in. Staring hard But I come doggone close with Lucifer eyes. I couldn’t barely make them Said I ain’t yet killed a man, no out laying down there where I be, but I seen But I come doggone close the one were fat as a brood sow set to pop with And if that man git to me first Lord piglets, wearing blue coveralls and swinging a He gonna hafta reckon with my ghost… kerosene lamp. T’other, he were built right from bricks carved thick and sharp, his pitch black Reckon I believes in God almighty, hear. hair cut straight cross the top his head just like a Reckon I do. But he ain’t nothing I can rightly push broom. speak on. Never seen his face. But I sure nuff “Now…what we got here?” The bristle-headed seen Devils. Seen them all my day. Devils all one say, grinning dark and broke-tooth, giving over. One here, one there, walking just like man. Ethel the old wild-eye and pointing his revolver Some come in white hoods, you understand. at her bosom. She lock up tighter than a snare Some with a badge and uniform. Some Devils, drum and press against the north wall. So, he they be seen in real fine suits. Yes sir. Some don’t stomp on over her way, real slow and heavy, and come in no costume at all, all right, but you will don’t you know one them mud-caked clompers

3 was gonna crunch down on my right hand, “Junior! No!” Ethel holler. But I ain’t pay her snapping them two fingers like brittle old twigs no mind. in a dry autumn. Bertie she slap her hand cross I gone straight on behind that front counter, my mouth for to keep me silent…but I weren’t grab up my father guitar case and kept right fixing to make no sound any old way, even on to running back outside. That there case, I though that pain were hacking paths all through couldn’t hardly lift it, and my two broke fingers my skinny little frame. That man, he ain’t notice, got to throbbing and pounding something evil. though, on count of his eyes being dead set on But I’s needing what was in it. I done knowed my sister trembling young body. that I did. “Come on, Whitney,” the fat one got to grunting. No sooner I be outside again a black automobile “We ain’t got no time for no fornication.” screech to a stop right by us, and a young well- “Just…just do your business quick and git dressed Negro man we ain’t never seen fore in gone, hear?” Ethel say, putting on a right brave our lives jump right out. face. “Y’all OK?” he axe. “Get inna car. Imma git “Let’s just see how it goes, little girl,” that man you out of here now.” We ain’t move a hair. hiss, reaching his hand toward Ethel top button. “Y’all stay here and you gonna burn right up,” Right then Senior Lewis come on busting he say. “Either that or them white men gonna through the door swinging his shotgun like a haul you off to a camp. You want that?” club and he catch the hog man in his blubbery Not so much as a twitch, you hear. Just three gut with one swoop. That fat hunky he retch out little old scarecrows swaying inna hot breeze of a dribble of blood, drop his lamp, and stumble a flaming city. off down the hall wheezing and groaning like “Ethel?” he say. “Bertie? Junior? Last chance a beat down pack mule. Father were just set to now.” cocking his rifle as that other white man turn After a short breath of hesitating, we crawls the revolver on him, and open up his chest wide on into that vehicle. Yes, we did. Nothing to with one shot. Old man slam against the south lose, you understand. The young man he shut wall, dead as a rock inna sea, smearing a thick the door for us, jump on in his own self, and we trail of red right cross the paint. Room smelling speed off into the night. from sulfur, flint, and kerosene. “Where you need to go?” he axe further. “You Bertie she got to screaming loud, “DADDY! got family anywhere close by?” DADDY!” and Ethel slide down the north wall Only family I ever did know was Ethel, Bertie, just sobbing. The white man look back at Ethel, and our old man. But Ethel she manage to squeak strike a match with his thumb that he done pull out, “We g-gots kin in…in Doddsville.” from his pocket, drop it inna kerosene and say, “Doddsvile? Mississippi?” “Y’all cook real good now.” And make his exit. “Y-yes sir.” I don’t member much else but the flash of fire “Goddamn…that’s a long haul. But…I’ll take and watching my father go up in flames. We fly you there.” from the room, down them stairs into the shop, “Th-thank you sir.” and out the door. “This is bad…” he mutter under his breath, Outside Greenwood Avenue weren’t nothing pressing the pedal and sending us off with a but a mass of flame so far as your eye could see. screech. “Worse than ’92. Worse than ’65. Haven’t Whites there rounding up Negroes all long the seen it like this since 1896.” way, just like livestock, and carting them off to I ain’t had no earthly notion of what he saying. parts unknown. Folk who resist was shot on site. But I ain’t truly care none. Shock had me closed And there it were, whole Colored side of the up good. Frisco tracks burning, crumbling, falling away to And so we done drived all through the night, nothing, the night sky above filling with smoke not speaking nother solitary word, leaving a and black dust. burning Tulsa and every last bit of life as we done “We making our stand at Stovepipe Hill!” knowed it far behind. And there I set clutching someone were heard to shout. But what that all I had left of old man in my one good hand, mean to three small childrens who just seen they t’other hand aching and stinging for what his only parent knock down dead as a old stone and killer done left me with. they home disappear in one blazing flash. It ain’t Come sun up the man he drop us off at Aunt mean nothing at all, I tell you that. So we just to Bessie house. She come crying and wailing offa stood there, eyes wide like six burning suns, as that front porch just grabbing us up so tight we the whole goddamn world die all round us. bout like to smother, and screaming Why Lord All sudden a wild spirit up and grab me and why O sweet Jesus? I done found myself to running right on back Aunt Bessie lead the girls on inna house, and inside that burning shop. I be fixing to follow, when that man he lay his

4 hand on my shoulder. I turn round to face him. like them two wrecked up fingers on my right “You gonna carry that with you, Junior?” hand. Ain’t no liquor brewed up by man gonna he axe, pointing at my father guitar case I gots give me the cure I be needing. No sir. Ain’t not a clutched tight cross my chest. I nod my head yes. one. Though I tries to find it all same. “Figure you gonna use that machine in there?” he Something else haunt me swell, if haunt tap the case. “Use it like your father did?” I nod the proper word for it. Some nights when I be again. He smile wide. “Well in that circumstance, playing my songs for the people to dance to, I I reckon we’ll be meeting each other again. sometime look out and see that man who done We’ll likely have to strike up a deal when you drived us to Mississippi. Never don’t talk or get grown. I can help you, Junior. I can help you nothing, he just out inna crowd. Somewheres when you need it. And you gonna need it.” inna back. Sometime he tip his hat and smile. But That young man he say fare thee well, and set I gits to looking down at my picking hand for one off inna dust of the morning. Never even done little old second, look up…and he gone. give his name. It weren’t just at jooks I seen him at. No sir. Even as just a boy I be out plowing or picking Clarksdale callin’, baby inna fields and I would have to swear to holy Don’t you know I be on my way… Jesus that I would see that man out yonder far off. He be right there. But I blink my eyes, turn I ain’t that boney little boy no more. No sir. my head just so, and he ain’t there no more when I’s well a full-grown man these here days, and I look on back. Figure that he would stroll on out believe that I sure enough got my growth. I ain’t where I be and chew the rag a spell. I thank him called The Ox for no damn reason, hear? for his kindness. But always he done gone like a Us three, we shuffle round tween aunts, uncles, wisp onna wind. I ain’t seen him again for many and cousins til we old enough to make our own a year, til I start to playing jooks. And then it be ways. Both my sisters they done settle down in just a moment here and a moment there. Selma, Alabama with husbands and childrens in He done said that we meet again, but we don’t tow. I use to see them round holidays and such. never meet. I be seeing him, but then he gone. But I don’t see them no more. Folk grow apart. It Thing that trouble my mind, though, is that be that way some time. Me, I drived a mule plow he…he don’t never seem to get no older. From inna fields all through the South while I’s raising seven year old to twenny one I done seen this up, spending my weekends picking my father man off and on, and he don’t ever age a solitary guitar in jooks when I gots the age to do it. Time day. My death right now if I tells a lie. come I made my way riding onna music alone. Weren’t long fore my crazy two-slide playing Just like a dog inna thunder Lord ways had folk packing joints every where this Can you hear me weep and moan side of the Mississippi. Everywheres cepting Just like a dog inna thunder Oklahoma. Swore on my father unmarked grave Lord Lord Lord I weren’t never setting foot in that town again. Can’t you hear me weep and moan I do admit I done had occasion to fall into them There be a roar of hellfire all round me, Lord old traps of The Blues Man: fighting, drinking, And I’s out here on my own gambling, kicking the gong round, having to stomp a body or get my own self stomped And so, it come to pass that I finds myself for making time with Mr. Soandso wife. You right there in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Some understand. Ain’t nothing I’s proud of, that just colored folk working fields right onna outskirts be the life of a rambling man. Yes sir. of Coahoma County was fixing to pitch a ball But things they do haunt me. Things that got out at a old farmhouse, and some ruckus was this boy shaking and sick at night, trying to cry sure enough a cinch to go down. For such affairs even as a full-grown man, but ain’t got what it as these a loud, hard-driving guitar player be take to do it. It be locked up in my throat and needed, and there plenty to pick from round I can’t push it on out. That night in Tulsa burn Clarksdale. But come on now. Ain’t no body to through my very dreams at night, and I can’t call on in that situation but the Plow Boy hisself. never shake it. That look inna eyes of my father And let me tell you, them folks ain’t disappoint, when that bullet done rip through his chest, his and I ain’t disappoint them. The Spirit were life leaking out his back all down the wall. Way sure nuff moving all over that joint, but weren’t that ofay who kill old man look hard on my sister nothing holy bout it, no sir. Got paid in a fine hot with some manner of lust and hate the likes of meal and a good bit of jingle for my pocket. And which not a body alive should have put down the lady of the house she tip me a bit more on on them. That Old Whitney, with his intentions. top.You understand. It weigh down hard on me, like that load I tote Next day I gits up and heads off inna town cross my back. It gets to aching all through me, for to buy me a new hat and walking shoes. Just

5 cause the notion please me. So, light in my step I out back to eat. No sir. Don’t mind at all.” was right then I ain’t even barely notice all them Horse shit, you understand. I weren’t hungry. ofays milling bout they business. Turning right I couldn’t eat nothing just then nohow. But I had up East Second Street…that there where I done to see up close with my own eyes that man. That seen him. man who done set the fire and pull the trigger Climbing up inna driver side of a flatbed truck that done took my whole life away. I seen that square flat top first off. Same push “We don’t have that kind of music here, and broom hair cut I seen 14 year ago, now with a we don’t serve your…kind of food here neither. good helping of salt mix in that block of black You just go on git now.” pepper. Softer rounda middle too, but still hard I stood right still, holding a molded grin on my cut like a rock. And just so as I can be sure of face. what I be seeing, I hears. “Is he gonna hafta tell you again, boy?” “Come on, Whitney, move on over and let me Whitney grunt turning toward me.“You simple? drive,” a younger white man say huffing up to You deef? The door’s thataway. Consider yourself the vehicle. warned for the last time.” “Shut the hell up and git in,” Old Whitney he So I smile, nod my head real nice, and make bark back at him, and the kid do just that. My my way on outside. slide fingers got to throbbing just to see the man, And inna dark, I waits. and he musta felted my stare on him right then People be coming and going mosta night. Time cause he turn them Devil eyes right on me and he come and folk got to be leaving and no one new say “You need something, boy?” replace them. I seen that younger white man I just kept on to looking and not moving one come stumbling out and walk on his way alone. muscle. For too long he just drive away. And then finally…there he. My man. The one I Next eight hours or more I set right onna side be waiting on. Out onna streets by hisself. And of that street there just playing my guitar. And with not a care in his heart, I reckon. And nothing thinking evil. Ain’t git up to eat or make water else neither. or nothing. Just set and play til the sun start to At his truck I were there waiting fore even he setting. Couple folk drop a coin or two, but most git there his own self. just walk on by. Don’t make me no nevermind “Don’t turn round,” I say. one way or t’other. I just had to set and play and “What the goddamn–” that alla what I could do. Thinking on Tulsa, “And don’t make one more noise. Just git to thinking on Senior Lewis, thinking on the life we walking.” all done had. Thinking on what be all gone now. And that’s just what he done with nary another Thinking evil. word from me. .38 pressing right on inna curve in I ain’t know if he were coming back. Old White his back saying all what need to be said. Whitney. But I had a notion that he just might. So, we got to walking. Offa street. Outta town. And come sundown I seen that flatbed truck Inna dust. Into the thick of trees. Frogs and once again. Both them mens git out from they insects screaming out inna night. He in front, me vehicle sweating and dusty, and head on into a behind toting that guitar on my back, alla while white folk tavern. the muzzle of my father pistol pointing straight “Hells bells you a big’n, ain’t you?” Barkeep at his goddamn head. say to me, sizing me up and stepping on back a And we don’t say nothing for long time. piece. “Can I help you?” “You pull that trigger you gonna swing, boy,” Old Whitney there with his young friend, and he say after we got to walking a fur piece. “You there I be, standing right behind that pale old know that, right.” rat as he set stuffing his mouth with corn bread. Imma swing if I pull the trigger or not, I says So close I coulda snap his goddamn neck right inside my own mind. But I don’t mutter not a then. Barkeep eye me real nervous like and I word out loud. We just walk. Deep in to the black stands there holding my guitar with my left of the night. I hears his breathing git heavy. He hand, clicking my slides together with my right. start to jabbing his heels inna soft ground further Click clack. Click clack. Don’t think I could stop the we go. Just a little old protest, I reckon. But we clicking even if I’s wanting to. keeps on moving. “Well sir,” I says smiling real wide, “name “I can git you money, if that is what you want, of Plow Boy Lewis at your service. I be just to boy,” his voice git to cracking. I laughs a bit onna passing right through your fine town here and I inside. But I don’t say nothing and we just to gots a bit of rumbling in my belly. Now, I ain’t got keep on. Keep on. Keep on… too much inna way of money to pay, but I were “Turn round,” I says finally. hoping that maybe I could set yonder and play a And he do. I holds that .38 on him with my left coupla tunes for your patrons here in exchange hand just as still as you please. for a meal or the like. I surely don’t mind setting “Reckon both us done rambled to Clarksdale,”

6 I says some more. “Now who would figure such kin and the other dogs inna house as his pack, all a thing? Reckon it’s fate?” right. But you ain’t. We ain’t. We ain’t no kin for “I just f-follow the work,” he stutter. a dog. Out inna wild, dogs and wolfs they run in “Well Mister, that make two of us. You knowing packs of they own. And in a storm they locks in me, Mr. Whitney?” close together for to keep warm and safe. “Can’t say that I do,” he say real quiet like. “But house dog ain’t got no pack…and the “Should I?” sound of thunder draw out that fear and pain like “Some might to say that yes you should. Sure dredging a dark, cold lake. You alone inna world, nuff. Yes indeed. Uh huh. So…question for you.” thunder say to a dog. All. Alone. All alone. So… “All…all right.” he cry.” “You gots dogs at home, Mr. Whitney?” With that I squeeze the trigger just as I pulls “How’s that?” my arm to the left, sending that bullet blasting “Answer my question now.” just over his right shoulder. He jump with a start, He scratch the back his head and spit onna bugeye, and git to trembling. ground. “You hearing that dog thunder, Whitney? You “I’m afraid I don’t r-rightly understand yer hears it? I do. Yes sir. I hears it. I hears it ALLA question.” TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME!” “Now Mr. Whitney. It surely ain’t no hard Right then that man he git to shaking hard, thing to answer. Mean to say, you either gots worser than my right hand. Mouth quivering dogs or you ain’t. So, do you gots dogs at your like jelly on a spoon. home? Yes or no?” “Look here,” he say, “I…I don’t know what it “I keep…two mutts for hunting, yes I do.” is you want from me, but you just name it. All “Do they git to crying and whimpering come a right? Just name it now.” thunder storm?” So many things I could name right then. So He blink hard twice, eyeing my .38. many. But instead I just squeeze the trigger again. “What now?” And I pull that shot just like the first. Stack of “DO THEY CRY AND WHIMPER IN A Bibles I did. Sure as I live and breathe I done sent THUNDER STORM!” it over his shoulder again. But that ain’t where That rage just got to flooding all through my it done gone. Goddamn if that bullet ain’t break body, you understand. My right hand got to right on through his left cheek. shaking, and that glass slide got on to clackety He stumble back with the wild-eye in dead clack clacking against the brass. Clack clack clack shock. Then fall flat to the ground. clack. Clack clack clack clack. For a moment, but for And you know I done stood over him firing off the crickets and tree frogs, it were the only sound. them last four shots right on into his skull til his “I…I suspect they do.” head weren’t nothing but tomato pulp and little Clack clack clack clack clack… cut honeydew rinds. “Even the biggest, meanest dog inna world I drop the pistol, stumble on over to a thick will git to whimpering and wailing in a storm, patch of grass, and fall to my knees crying deep won’t he, Mr. Whitney.” and heavy. Retching up what left of last night “Um…I reckon. I reckon he will at that, yes.” supper I stays on to crying and I cannot stop. “Now, Mr. Whitney, why do you suspect that I retches some more, all right. And more. But be?” ain’t nothing but spit and noise after a spell. All Clack clack clack clack clack clack. hollow inside. “Don’t…don’t rightly know.” Got my pay back, sure nuff did. Got that pay Clack clack clack clack. back…but it ain’t mean nothing. He dead…and I He git to fidgeting with his fingers as he can’t might just well be dead same as him. seem to take his eyes offa my right hand shaking But there ain’t no bullets left. harder now. Clack clack clack clack clack clack “All right now, Junior?” clack… I looks up, still on my knees inna grass. And “Well Mr. Whitney…I gots a notion I git to who do I sees walking up to me, but that young studying on from time to time. Don’t call me a Negro who drived us from Tulsa. Same as I ever expert now, it just a notion. But it seem to me that done seen him and not a day older. a house dog will cry all through a storm…just “Toppa the world, Mister,” I says wiping my cry cry cry…cause thunder make him come to hand cross my lips. “Ain’t that plain to see.” realize…that he alone. You understand?” He smile and nod. “Um.” “Looks like you made a bit of a mess there, “Dogs is just like us, hear? They lie to they son,” he say tipping his head at old Whitney own selfs, just like we do. Most time your dog body laying there. “Everything better now?” he think the life he gots in your house, it is just “Ain’t nothing better now,” I says clenching fine and dandy. And he think on you and your

7 my teeth hard. “Nothing. Likely worser, in fact. “O, we ain’t driving, Plow Boy. It’s a long dark You looking at two dead mens here inna grass, path we’re walking.” friend-boy. Ain’t just one. Ain’t just him.” I bends over to fetch my .38 and sling that “That’s probably true.” guitar cross my back one time again. “Got a name do ya?” “This way! I see something moving! Come on! “Chances are good. But you can just call me Hey! Y’all out there freeze!” Jerome.” “We best git a move on, Junior. It is now or I git to standing up straight and look him dead never.” inna eyes. So, we done just that. Ducking on out into the “You ain’t age a minute since Tulsa, Jerome. brush, dodging the devils, quick and silent til we How you count for yourself?” inna clear. Then walking. Walking all through “Just lucky I guess. So, tell me, Plow Boy. the night. Not speaking nother solitary word. What’s your plan here? How far do you think Leaving old corpse…and old Clarksdale…and you can go before they trace this jackass corpse every last bit of my life as I ever done knowed it right to you?” far behind. “Reckon I might just well turn myself on over. All right?” I raise up my hands, surrendering to the Lord. “Let this just end now…Less then you gots a different notion. I be all ears, all right, yes Dr. Nathan Singer is a novelist, playwright, indeed.” composer, and experimental performing artist from “That’s what I like to hear,” he say grinning Cincinnati, Ohio. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree wide. “You follow me. I know a path that’ll take in English and Theater from Northern Kentucky you FAR from here. None of these mothergrabbing University, a Master’s in Creative Writing from fools will ever find you. Of course,…it’s gonna Antioch University, and a PhD in Interdisciplinary cost a bit. This ain’t free, like Tulsa. You ain’t a Humanities with a creative writing focus from Union boy no more, and this is a different kinda walk. Institute & University. He currently teaches writing at You understand.” Antioch, UC, NKU and Cincinnati State. He has been “I ain’t got no ways to pay you.” published in various literary journals, and performs “You’ll find a way.” on a semi-regular basis both as a solo artist and with “So I follows you…and the Devils be offa my various ensembles, though mostly with his band The trail for good?” Whiskey Shambles and with avant-garde performance “Well…you’ll kinda be trading one set of collective Performance Gallery. His published novels devils for another. But you follow my lead, and are A Prayer for Dawn, Chasing the Wolf, In don’t make a big show of yourself, and you’ll be the Light of You, The Song in the Squall, and just fine. Eventually.” Transorbital. His sixth novel, Blackchurch Furnace, “You…huh…you Satan, ain’t you.” was published in November of 2017. “HA HA HA!” He git to laughing, doubling over on hisself. “O shit! HA HA HA! You are the first to ever just come right out and ask! Well… that’s a damn good guess anyway!” Inna distance I see them lamp lights just to floating inna trees. Getting closer and closer. And them devil voices get louder, “Right out yonder is where I heard them shots!” a voice say. “Follow me! Keep them rifles at the ready.” “Goddamn,” I says. “Goddamn indeed,” Jerome reply. “This it, I reckon.” “You could try to run, yes you could. But come on now. How far do you think you’d git on your own? You stay here and they are gonna burn you up. Or string you up. Or both. Choice is yours, Junior. Last chance, now.” “But…where we gonna go?” “What’s your pleasure, big city? Ain’t so much the where, it’s the when.” “I heard something!” another voice holler. “Thisaway!” “Where your automobile at?”

8 How to Stargaze Dangerously

Carry dim flashlights from the steps of Knobs Haven. Do not check batteries—this is faith. Traverse grotto. Turn off and dance by the light of a black lake littered with stars. Float wine bottles to cool them. Rest. This is the place where we swim at midnight. It calms us so deeply that even the roar of a truck hurtling by does not coax us from corpse pose. At midnight, move to the water farther from road. Wait. Frogs sluice between us, long legs kick, kick and they croak-sing—flirt poolside. Tell the lives of the warrior women who live here. With quiet tongues, hide their stories deep in flesh, etched in the edge of a wrist bone. There is no room for flinching.

Nicci Mechler splits her time between exploring, spinning tales, and drawing girls with inky tattoos. Her work appears in various literary magazines, chapbooks in these cups (dancing girl press, 2016), how wild & soft you are (Hermeneutic Chaos Press, 2016)—collaboratively penned as Wild Soft—and Deep in Flesh (dancing girl press, 2017). Nicci runs Porkbelly Press, a feminist, queer-friendly micro press, and edits the lit mag Sugared Water. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with a pack of roommates & rescue animals, and blogs at: damnredshoes.wordpress.com.

9 Remains finding Dad’s love letters to his mistress, unsent.

Balanced on the stairs is a dusty box. Inside, wire spirals strangle each other, pages so heavily etched they furl closed.

I expect notes on porosity and investment, maybe wax-infiltration, or design ideas put down in thick ballpoint strokes— some trade secret of a fifty-year jeweler. Of course, with you, I never quite get what I want.

You sign these letters love, love.

10 Potable Water

In Egypt, you’re sixty-four and I’m thirteen. We sit perched on the edge of the Aswan dam, windswept hair reaching toward Cairo. In the evening, at market, I barter for a silver pendant of Isis. (She knows how to fix things.)

Twenty-one, in a hospital waiting room, I think if I could find her, you’d heal.

I lost her long ago.

Maybe she was eaten by a croc, belly full and Nile-water warm.

It’s like sitting in the desert, far from even the pyramids at Giza, wanting for a cup of water

11 rian Hershey graduated from The Ohio State University with a degree in Behavioral and Social Sciences and a Master of Education. He then went Bto The Institute of Children’s Literature in Connecticut to begin writing YA fiction. His first novel, Accidental Impact, published in 2009 draws awareness to underage consumption and the perils of drunk driving. He then returned to NKU to get a Master of Arts in English and Creative Writing. It was here that he switched focus from children’s literature to adult fiction. His most recent novel, Forgotten Sin, was published in 2014 and is the first in a thrilling horror trilogy. Brian is also the creator of the local publisher Reader2Writer Press where he, along with his team, focuses on horror fiction. R2W is diligently working on creating a quarterly magazine, Dead Avenue Magazine, that will feature short horror stories. Hershey currently lives in Cincinnati and teaches English and Creative Writing at a local middle school.

12 home. They had packed her father’s belongings into labeled boxes and stored them in the garage. He wouldn’t make a full recovery. At best, she would send him to a home. This was her house now. It belonged to her and Jim. Under the Willow Tree Her father had some minor improvement at first; Maggie had updated her on the phone. nder the willow tree in Carrie’s front yard, Then he rapidly declined and there was no sign beneath the shade and freshly mown grass, of improvements at all. Each time they spoke, Uthere is a baby in a small wooden box. There’s no Maggie was kind, sympathetic. Carrie didn’t marker, no headstone, not even a small cross to have the heart to tell her she wished the bastard mark her presence. She is alone, about four feet would die. deep in the soil, and mostly forgotten. Mostly. “Hey, Hun. It’s Maggie. How are ya?” Because Carrie remembers every day when she Carrie rinses her mug in the sink and places it looks out the kitchen window; she dug the grave in the top rack of the dishwasher. She shifts the herself. phone to the other ear. “I’m alright. You?” It has been years, but she remembers clearly. “I’m well. Thanks. Look, Hun. I’m afraid we’re Rain fell as she carried the small handmade coffin getting close here…to the end.” under the tree, the leaves sheltering her like an Carrie plods upstairs to the bedroom and umbrella. There was the smell of worms and wet gathers her clothes for the day from hangers and earth as she shoveled a home for her tiny infant dressers. She selects a paisley skirt, a matching and tears rolled down her cheeks and onto her top, and fresh undergarments. neck, disappearing into her oversized night shirt. “Yeah?” Carrie is staring out the window when her There’s a pause on the line and she can hear husband, Jim, wraps his arms around her waist. background chatter, some beeping, and an She sips her warm coffee and tilts her head to the intercom paging some doctor. side as he kisses her neck. “You may want to come down.” “You’re up early.” Carrie places her clothes on the bathroom sink “I couldn’t sleep,” she says. and sheds her robe, wiggling her toes in the plush He lets go and moves toward the coffee pot. “I powder blue bath mat. She sets the phone on the have a meeting. No breakfast for me. But I’ll be sink and pulls her nightgown over her head, home for dinner.” sheds her panties. She picks the phone back up. “I’ll make something nice.” Her eyes are still “How long do I have?” on the willow tree, its branches drooping, leaves “Just a guess here. Could be within the day. I reaching toward the ground. It rustles in a breeze just wanted to let you know.” she cannot feel. “Thanks, Maggie.” Carrie retrieves a towel He pours a cup and she knows he adds two from the linen closet. “I appreciate it.” teaspoons of Coffemate because he always does. When the call is over she showers, scrubbing He stirs, his spoon clinking against his mug. her skin extra hard with the loofa and strawberry- “Sounds good. Maybe some music? Candles? scented body wash. She doesn’t cry. She’s in no We could try again?” hurry. She turns away from the window and faces him. She places her mug on the counter and arrie’s mother died giving birth to her. The tightens the belt on her robe. “Sure. Yeah. Of day Carrie was born is the date of death on course.” Cher mother’s headstone. Elizabeth Miller was laid to rest at Summer Grove Cemetery, about he telephone rings after Jim closes the two miles from the house. Her father, Clint, door. It’s Maggie, the heavy-set nurse from reminded Carrie often of his loss and not just on TUniversity Hospital, the one with wiry gray hair Carrie’s birthdate every year, but on a weekly that’s always in a bun. Carrie has heard from her basis. periodically over the past month since her father She was met nightly with his scowl when he was admitted after a stroke. He’s never going home, returned home from work. He’d throw his keys Maggie told her weeks ago. She said it kindly, and pocket change in the catchall by the front her veiny hands placed softly over Carrie’s in the door and saunter in to the kitchen where Carrie hospital corridor. It’s just his time, dear. The Lord is was cooking dinner. He’d pop a tab on a can of taking him home. You should go in and see him. Milwaukee’s Finest and slide into a kitchen chair. Carrie didn’t. The interrogations would begin. She and Jim had reluctantly moved from their Did you do your homework? What have you been cozy one bedroom apartment into her childhood doing? No scholarship, no college. Oh, hell, you’re not

13 college material anyway. You staying outta trouble? to speak, though Maggie says he’s tried. Some You’re behind on the laundry. What the hell is that deep place inside her, a dark place that scares her, smell and where did you learn to cook? she finds this an ironic and suitable punishment Carrie kept her back to him, answered in one for him. She knows if he could speak he would word sentences or sometimes not at all. She’d put say nothing kind because he never has. a hot breaded cube steak or pork chop or heaping “I know. I know,” she says. “The nurse told me pile of some casserole on his plate, wondering you can’t speak and that’s probably best for both when he would shut up. She wished he’d say of us.” She looks at the chair and decides not to something positive. Something encouraging. sit; she will be leaving soon. “Are they taking She’d lay a napkin, present him with a fork good care of you?” and she’d slide in across the table, grateful for a He stares at her blankly and she wonders mostly silent meal while he chewed and sighed suddenly if he can understand what she’s saying. and then walked away from his dirty dishes. She probably should’ve asked Maggie on the It was no surprise she’d fallen so hard for phone if his brain was mush. Max in high school. She was a freshman, he was “I’m not staying. This was overdue,” she shifts a junior and it had moved quickly. It was no her weight. “The goodbye, I mean. I should’ve trouble sneaking out of the house at night with a done it long ago. I was a good daughter. I made drunken, snoring father in the next room. Maybe mistakes, sure. But I was a good daughter. There’s it wasn’t a surprise either when she was pregnant a special place for people like you.” three months later. Carrie’s father stares at her and she Max said nice things to her, held her, told her swears one of the machines beep a little faster. she was pretty. Carrie believed him. She needed “You are going to die alone, just like you to believe in something, but she couldn’t believe should. I hope you go quickly. I hope you don’t the positive pregnancy test that she held in the suffer.” bathroom during her lunch break at school. Two bright pink lines just like that. She was too arrie could tell by the look on her father’s stunned to cry. face that he knew about the baby. The school Four months later she was single, the faint Cbus hissed and pulled away. She slowed her walk flutter of a tiny infant in her growing belly and shifted her back pack, her eyes moving to the keeping her up at night. Max had college, football gravel driveway. What was in that envelope? dreams, and goals in life. He’d written it all in She had used the clinic out of town for prenatal a letter, placed it in an envelope with her name checkups. Max had been taking her until two neatly written in block letters and taped it to her weeks ago when they’d had a fight. Even his front door. He hadn’t even passed it to her in the parents didn’t know about the pregnancy. He was hall at school. using savings from his part-time job at the local Carrie’s dad was waiting for her that day when movie theater to pay for the appointments so it she got off the bus, opened letter in hand. couldn’t be a bill. Had the clinic mailed something? “You gotta lotta nerve, Carrie Ann! You little arrie’s low-heeled pumps clack on the whore!” hospital linoleum. Antiseptic and lemon Carrie walked past him, her heart hammering Ccleaners invade her nostrils as she approaches violently in her chest, her eyes on the ground. Room 1402. The door is closed and she considers She dropped her backpack inside the front door turning around and getting back in the car. and walked into the kitchen. It was time for her Instead, she takes a deep breath and pushes the to start dinner. heavy door open. “I’m talking to you!” Her father’s eyes are closed and his chest moves She opened the fridge and removed the thawed slowly up and down, tubes reaching from his chicken thighs from the lower shelf. Her mind body like tentacles, attached to the surrounding was racing. He knew. He knew! She was going to machines. Some of them click, some beep. Carrie tell him, eventually she had to. She just hadn’t clutches her purse closer to her body, unaware figured out how yet. She’d been wearing baggy she is tiptoeing toward his bed. t-shirts but she’d only gained a few pounds and He’s aged terribly. She doesn’t remember most besides her swollen breasts she didn’t think he of the deep wrinkles etched in his face and his could see the hard bump that still fit in her jeans. facial hair is gray; he’s nearly bald. None of that mattered now because it was all out His eyes twitch and slowly open. Carrie takes in the open. a step back and nearly falls into a chair, then She placed the chicken on the counter and recovers and nods. turned to him. “What is that? In that envelope?” “I came to say goodbye.” “I ask the questions around here! You don’t ask He says nothing. Since the stroke, he is unable me shit. You understand?”

14 Carrie nodded. She couldn’t stop sobbing, her shoulders heaving “Looks like ole Max here is done with you. and jerking and little sounds came out of her Don’t want nothing to do with you or your mouth that she couldn’t control. bastard child. He’s gonna try and be somebody? She retrieved a shovel from the shed and And you’re gonna raise that little shit in your carried her baby to the willow tree. gut?” Carrie winced. “Don’t call it that.” arrie’s father died hours after she left the “What do you want me to call it? It’s a son of hospital. Maggie had called but Carrie let a bitch.” Cit go to voicemail while she and Jim ate dinner. “It’s a girl. Pops, please. Let me explain.” She’d made his favorite meal and even baked a He punched her in the mouth. In her fifteen pie. years, he had never hit her like that. She’d been When she picked up her father’s urn slapped once or twice and spanked as a child, later that week, Jim had offered to help her scatter but he had never punched her like a man. Tears the ashes. He could take a day off work, he said. sprang to her eyes and she touched her mouth Carrie wanted to be alone and he understood. tenderly. There was blood on her fingertips when Maybe she’d dump the ashes over her mother’s she pulled her hand away. grave at the cemetery. That was a thought. Carrie “No explaining necessary. I know exactly how knew for sure she would not sprinkle them under babies are made. Who all knows? Huh? Who all the willow tree. knows about this?” Carrie shook her head and took a deep breath, which sounded more like a gulp, as she tried to compose herself. The baby moved gently inside Shae M. Hall is a freelance writer who lives in Lakeside her womb and she instinctively placed her hand Park, Kentucky. She recently published her short over her abdomen. Her lips throbbed painfully. story, “Love, Daniel” in Waypoints magazine. She is “Just Max. And you.” a member of Cincinnati Writer’s Project. She helped He glared at her. “I’m not paying for a baby, edit the newly released novel, Seeds of the Lemon Carrie Ann. Not doing it.” He ran his hands Grove III by Joe D’amato. Shae has been published in through his hair and turned toward the kitchen Creative Living. She was previously a fiction editor for window, his back to her. “I shoulda known. It The New Madrid. She has a MFA in Creative Writing was a matter of time. No brains in that head of from Murray State University and a Bachelor degree yours.” in Electronic Media Communication and Creative Carrie pulled a paper towel off the roll and Writing from Northern Kentucky University. Shae is dabbed her mouth softly. She could feel her lips currently working on a collection of short stories. In swelling. She ran her tongue across her teeth, her spare time, Shae enjoys reading literary fiction and surprised they were all still mounted in her cooking. gums. She swallowed blood. Her father turned around and sighed. “I’m gonna do us both a favor. Especially you. And I’m sorry for it. I am.” The kick that landed in her stomach was enough to bring cramps that night. She lay curled in the fetal position on the bathroom floor wishing her baby to move. Pain radiated from her abdomen to her lower back. She cried silently on the bathroom rug, staring at the cracks in the tiled floor. She knew what was coming. There was no hospital visit; her father refused. It hadn’t taken long to miscarry. Carrie thought God was kind for that. She thought maybe God had shown her sympathy, if there was a God after all. When she emerged from the bathroom with a clean towel swaddled in her arms she found a small wooden box on the kitchen table. He had nailed it together himself, she was sure of it. Rain patted against the kitchen window, the old willow tree swaying in the breeze outside. The house was silent except for her ragged breathing.

15 Field Notes

1

in physics dark matter isn’t “made” of anything. it’s a free citizen

that passes unburdened through the field, through itself,

through you—

2

it helps to observe from a distance: the field, for instance,

as a statement

the south has chosen to make, the way whiteness too is often rhetorical, as when an older student remarks

in those beginning days that only he observed mlk’s holiday while his black friends, working, did not

3

sometimes love is a black dot in a field

sometimes, suddenly it is not.

4

or how can black be

the absence of all color? take this cruiser. see the light strike blue off the car like copper through a fountain

Keith S. Wilson is an Affrilachian Poet, Cave Canem fellow, and graduate of the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop. He has received three scholarships from Bread Loaf as well as scholarships from MacDowell, UCross, Millay Colony, and the Vermont Studio Center, among others. Keith serves as Assistant Poetry Editor at Four Way Review and Digital Media Editor at Obsidian Journal.

16 5 there is a difference between what is fair and what is just, for instance, it is fair that i try to love your skin even when it is not touching my own

6 whiteness is an alibi, the way the officer was like a steam- liner

only I could see

7 inside where nothing shows I am of course not black but that does not matter to the field

8 some colors are indistinguishable at night. put your hands behind your back a different cop once asked me. it was so sincere. he was so polite

9 as a boy you learn to know the inside without being required to feel it as when, now, I understand a bucket or a hood

10 he asks my girlfriend not if she is white since even in this light what we are is obvious but instead he speaks philosophically: ma’am he asks are you here of your own free will

17 11 sometimes whiteness is a form itself of hyperbole. try this: sit in a field. then try reading andrew jackson’s quotes on liberty only pretend they are being written by his slaves

12 look at the word black on the paper & you will see a certain black, a kind, a certainty, or if you see nothing at all that of course is a kind of black too

13 by the road my father showed me cotton once look at that he said

18 How to Express Mixed Emotions on a Standardized Test

Brace yourself on your number 2 pencil. Bubble in your name, your address and quantitate yourself. Make a complete Stop at the heritage box. Be careful, It might be labeled ‘Race,’ or ‘Ethnic Origin.’

Don’t bubble in ‘White.’ Don’t bubble in ‘African-American.’ And don’t bubble in ‘Other.’ Because neither of your parents is an Other.

When strangers group together try not to notice the pale and dark roads form that you don’t quite fit on.

Try not to endear yourself to your mother’s nephews more than your father’s. and when the phone rings, and your little cousin’s voice asks why you talk white, try not to answer.

If on your way home someone asks you where you’re from, feign ignorance, and answer ‘California.’ When they follow with ‘Where are your parents from?’ answer ‘New Jersey,’ or ‘Ohio,’ And just keep moving.

Don’t admit that when a stranger calls you ‘Dirty Mexican’ or ‘Sand Nigger’ what really upsets you is that they can’t tell which racist name to call you.

Just keep moving. You’ll get to the space between Jersey and Ohio eventually, and you don’t want to miss a problem this early in the test

19 about a year, and I had to ride to school in a car that my buddy Rob called his “Crapalier”. It was a two-door, rust-brown Chevy that he had fixed Wrecks up after buying it for only a few dollars. He picked Chris up after me every day, so I y second serious high school girlfriend fell just sat in the back the whole time. It was one day in love with me because I was someone in the spring of our sophomore year; we were Melse’s hero. We were sitting by my car when I stopping at a busy intersection when we heard a heard about it. We had gone to see a movie at terrible crash. Rob slammed on the brakes, and I the Dollar Saver Cinema, and then gotten Taco dropped my Gameboy. Bell on our way to the river. In the Ohio suburb When I looked up there were still shards of where I grew up, there is an old VFW hall next glass and bits of twisted steel falling from the sky, to a dirty river-bank. The small parking lot that pelting the hood and windshield of The Crapalier. overlooks the river there was a popular place to Rob and Chris were stunned. They were staring, bring a date, although I didn’t know it at the time. slack-jawed, at the imploded vehicles. I didn’t I thought I had found the place on my own, and understand this. Why weren’t they reacting yet? was very impressed with my ingenuity, and this Later I learned that for them, time had slowed night, Karen and I were alone there on the bank, down, and they felt powerless to act. sitting on a small, rock wall, deciding whether to “Get out.” I said, but they didn’t. I shook go back to my car and have sex. Chris’s seat in front of me. “Get out! Get out!” Our discussion was rather formal. Karen and Both of them then stumbled from the car. No I were measuring the pros and cons of giving one else around the accident had moved yet, up our life-long chastity to each other. Despite they all still had the slack-jawed surprise. Maybe teenage hormones, and plenty of privacy, neither time had slowed for them too. I looked toward of us had trouble pretending that this was an the smashed cars. It was obvious what had intellectual exercise. We already had “lack of happened: The little car that had been right in condom” in the ‘shouldn’t’ column, and all the front of us had tried to turn left, and been struck things that went along with that. In the ‘should’ by a cargo van going straight. The front of the column so far we had “We really want to” and van had completely destroyed the passenger side “We almost did last week anyway”. While we sat of the car. on the wall finishing our Mountain Dews, she I walked quickly to the little car. The driver was added another one to the ‘shouldn’t’ column. “I a girl I recognized from school. Jane. Plain-faced, love you.” she said. with long-blonde hair, her small eyes starring Rather than critique her choice of column directly ahead. I bent over and looked into her placement for this entry, I questioned the entry open driver-side window. The passenger-side itself. Still in intellectual mode, “Are you sure?” door was nearly at her armrest, while the seat had “Quite sure,” she said. been pushed into the back of the cab. If anyone “When did this come about?” I asked had been sitting there, they would certainly have “Last weekend, while I was away at church- been killed. Jane seemed okay, however. camp.” I called out to her, and she didn’t seem to hear So, one of the exercises at this camp was a late- me. From the other side of the intersection, I heard night decision making session, where each of the a gravelly voice yelling obscenities. I looked over teens were encouraged to reveal some difficult Jane’s car and saw that the driver of the van was decision in their lives, and the group was to emerging: a big man, with a heavy beard, and an help them decide. She had told the group that arm of tattoos showing from under the left sleeve she wasn’t sure if she loved me. Apparently, she of his t-shirt. He was walking around Jane’s car mentioned me by name, or perhaps we were a with a tire-iron in his hands, threatening to kill well-known enough couple that she didn’t have her. I turned to Rob and Chris, still standing next to, because one of the other girls had a story to the The Crapalier, only watching. tell about me: A story about me saving her life. “Stop him,” I called to them, and they finally “I hardly saved her life.” I said, wondering at sprang into motion. “Make sure he’s okay, and the same time why I would bother to downplay a keep him in his van.” story about me that someone else had told. The two skinny teenage guys stood before “You’re her hero.” Karen said. the big van-driver with their hands up in the “I didn’t know that,” I said, “I didn’t even universal sign for “I don’t want to fight you, but know that she knew who I was.” I want you to know I’m standing in your way.” Blood was running down the man’s face from he story that Karen had heard the other side under his hair, and after trying to stare down my Tof took place before I had my own car by friends for a moment, he dropped the iron, and

20 turned around, allowing himself to be ushered y friends didn’t like Karen, and they back to his vehicle. made it obvious. They didn’t like it when It was then that Jane opened her car door. She MI brought her along to restaurants or movies, had undone her seatbelt, and was trying to get and they specifically didn’t invite her to parties. out. I put my hand on her shoulder, and eased When I confronted them about it, they told me her back into the seat. that she was stuck-up, and that she didn’t respect “You’re okay.” I said. me, and that she was trying to control me, and She turned toward me, slightly, still staring take me away from my friends. As an adult, off in the distance, no emotion on her face. Her looking back, I see that they were wrong. Karen eyes were so dilated that I was surprised that she was sweet, pretty, and nice, and she was a good could see anything at all. “I’m not okay.” She said match for me; we were interested in the same flatly. things, and we had fun when we were together. Remembering my Boy Scouts first-aid training, But I was 17, and my friends’ opinions were the I ran through the gamut of questions. Was she most important thing in my world. bleeding anywhere? Did she feel like she had At the insistence of these friends, I called her broken any bones? Was her neck sore? She kept late on a Friday night, two months after the day trying to get up, but I wouldn’t let her, telling her that she told me about church camp, and she that it would be best for her if she stayed in the was hanging out with her own friends on the seat until the ambulance arrived. I finally had her other side of the small town. I asked her to meet sitting still, her shoulder in my right hand, and me down by the VFW, down at the river bank the well-manicured fingers of both her hands where she had told me she loved me. Reluctantly, tightly clasping my left. A man came around probably knowing what was coming, she agreed. the front of the car; finally, another motorist had When she got there, I was already out of my come over to help. Without looking away from car, leaning against it with my arms folded, Jane, I told him to call an ambulance. sunglasses on, despite the sun having gone “I… I already did” down hours ago. There were no other cars at the “Good,” I said. riverbank again. She got out, and looked at me “Wi.. Will the police want to… to talk to me?” over her car. he asked as if I was in charge. “What’s this about?” She asked me. “Yes.” I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure how. “Can I… What can do to help?” “I told my friends that I’ll probably be back in “You can help direct traffic around the accident a few minutes.” She said. “I told them that you until they get here.” were probably breaking up with me.” He stepped away and was replaced by a pair She stared at me for a while. I said only, “I’m of teenage girls who wanted to know what they sorry.” could do, so I told them to find a bottle of water. She shrugged, “I figured it was only a matter Other people were waiting in line to have me tell of time with how much your friends hate me.” them what to do, now that they were finally able I was staggered. I had no idea that she knew to move. how they felt. She must have registered the shock I didn’t understand it at the time, but this is on my face because she said, “They’re not very how most people react to emergencies; they look good at hiding the way they feel.” around for someone who looks like they are not We stared at one another for a moment freaking out to tell them what to do, even if it’s longer. She looked so expectant, as if there was a nerdy high-school kid. I told all the rest to go something else I was supposed to say or do. back to their cars and wait for the police. Then “Take off the sunglasses”, she commanded, “I it was still, and for several minutes, I just knelt want to see you.” in silence beside Jane, half out of her car, glass “I can’t”, I said. and steel from the road cutting through my cargo “It’s not shameful to cry,” she said, getting back pants and into my knees. into her car. Her assumption was wrong. I wasn’t When the Ambulance arrived, they first pulled wearing the sunglasses to hide tears from her. I me away from her, having to pry her fingers was instead hiding that I wasn’t crying. I didn’t away from my hand. They put a brace around want her to see how much this didn’t make me her neck, and lifted her onto a gurney. sad. I had been expecting a lot more. This was She was out of school for a week, and when the first time I’d ever broken up with someone. she came back she didn’t seek me out. I saw her I had expected her to be irrational, like girls on in the halls sometimes, but she never seemed to television always were. know me. She started the engine, and pulled out of the space, turning so that her driver’s side window was facing me as she pulled away. She slowed

21 and rolled down the window. “I love you.” She that she needed to be calmed. “Tracy is okay,” I said to me for only the second time. told her, “She’s hurt, and unconscious, but she’s “No you don’t”, I said, knowing that it was okay, alright?” The girl stared at me for a long the wrong thing to say as soon as I said it. She moment, but finally nodded and calmed down, so frowned, and rolled up her window as she pulled I helped her to prop herself against a utility pole away. a few feet away, partly sheltered from the rain It wasn’t until a few years later that I realized, by the awning of a store. I took the handkerchief the very thing Karen thought she loved about me from my pocket and placed it against her head, was also the thing she, and many girlfriends after where I could see the wound clearly through her her, hated in me. hair. She pulled away at first, so I took her hand, and put it over the cloth. hen I was in college, I drove a cargo van at “Hold this here, okay?” I realized I wasn’t night to pay for tuition. Every evening at using an asking tone, “Can you do that?” She W7pm, I would leave my little Civic at a loading nodded, just as someone who had been standing dock in the northern outskirts of Cincinnati, and on the sidewalk with an umbrella came over and take an already filled van up to Indianapolis crouched next to the girl, shielding her further to drop off car transmissions at the various from the downpour. AAMCOs which had ordered them during the Another motorist had gone to the sedan and day. seemed to be assisting the driver there, so I While stopped at a light in downtown turned back to the little coup, where I saw Tracy Indianapolis on a Thursday night. I watched as a was awake, and reaching to remove the shard small red car, coming from the opposite direction from her leg. sped through the red-light toward me. It was “Hang on. Hang on.” I said as I climbed back pouring rain, and visibility was low, but I could into the passenger side of the car, “leave that clearly see that the car was not going to clear the there, okay?” crossing. It was struck on the driver’s side by a “It huuuuurts!” she whined with a drunken grey sedan at full city-speed. I was out of my car, slur. dialing 9-1-1 before the cars had stopped their “I know, but you need to leave it until the slow-motion pirouette across the intersection, medics can take a look at it” the ATC trucker’s cap keeping the rain off my She held me with a sad look, as if trying to face. convince me to give her permission, I didn’t give I quickly told the operator where the accident in, “Are you a doctor?” she asked squinting at was, and left him on the line, in my pocket, while my soggy hat. I checked the cars. In the sedan, the driver, a “No,” I said, “I’m a cargo driver.” She nodded middle aged woman, had mild air-bag burns at this, as if it were just as good, and she leaned on her face and arms, but seemed uninjured back into the seat. otherwise. She wasn’t even stunned. I was about Her thigh wasn’t bleeding, but blood was to get into a string of questions to see how she flowing freely from the lacerations on her arm. I was, when I heard a scream. looked around the interior of the car, and found The passenger door of the other car flung open a stack of fast-food napkins tucked into a pocket and a small form tumbled out. I raced around the of the dash. I grabbed them and moved to press cars to find a girl crawling backwards away from them against her wounds. Seeing what I was the wreck, using her hands to drag herself away doing, she snatched the stack from my hand. from the car, and scrapping her unshorn heels on “Don’t use all of them, I need those” she the pavement as she kicked. Her dark hair was slurred, and then split the stack before pressing matted with blood and rain, and her clubbing one half against her arm on her own, the other clothes were torn and ruined, but she wasn’t half of the stack getting covered in the blood that concerned for herself. “Tracy’s dead!” she yelled was on her hands, then dropped to the floor. at me “Tracy’s dead!” “Hold that tight.” I instructed. She rolled her The driver-side door was pinned in place by the eyes and gave me a sarcastic thumbs-up with her sedan, so I leaned into the car from the passenger free hand. I backed myself out of the car just as side. Tracy looked much like her friend, with long the first fire-truck pulled up to the scene. dark hair and very little clothing. I couldn’t see A team of men leapt from the truck, and her face, as she was slumped over the steering took over the intersection, rerouting traffic, wheel. The car smelled of blood and alcohol. and tending to the wounded. One mustachioed I reached over to check her pulse, which was Fireman was simply standing and surveying strong despite the lacerations on her arm and the the scene, so I approached him. I told him about shard of glass embedded in her thigh. what happened, and what I had done so far, him I returned to the girl on the pavement, knowing nodding and staring at me the whole time. When

22 I was finished, he continued to stare at me, like he couldn’t figure out who I was supposed to be, why I was there. I got that feeling again, and my mind flashed back to that night when Karen held my gaze through my sunglasses. Maybe I should have been more freaked out than I was. Maybe I should have been more concerned for the well- being of the girls I tended too. I wasn’t sure. I’m still not sure. He looked at me, and through me, searching for something which was obviously not there. I had to say something. “So,” I said, uncomfortably, “Must be a slow night for the fire department, what with all the rain.” “We’re not always looking for fires to put out,” he said, and finally turned away.

CB Droege is an author and voice actor from the Queen City living in the Millionendorf. His latest book is RapUnsEl and Other Stories. He recently edited Starward Tales: An Anthology of Speculative Legends.

23 her way around the world so she followed the only path that led from the water. It led to a small village with one road. The buildings were old with thatched roofs and the people seemed to be The Woman Beneath the Sea made of the same dust that they kicked around, but they were warm and welcoming. ell me the story of the woman beneath the sea. She refused to say anything about herself so the Long ago, when the world was much villagers took to calling her Aine, which means Tdifferent, when it thrived on beauty and being brilliance. Stars don’t have names for themselves alive, a comet ripped through the cosmos and so she relished the idea of someone calling her upset the stars. Swept from their natural resting by name and smiled in approval whenever her place, the stars took up a cold residence in places name was spoken. that were foreign and unnatural. They were No one knew where she came from, but it scattered and confused and it took days to drift wasn’t because the adults were too timid to ask. back to their homes. In fact, they were quite direct in the way they It was during this confusion when she talked to the flaxen maiden. fell. Usually, the cosmos does a better job at “Such a pretty and delicate thing,” they’d catching its own, but the comet shot through so chant to her. “It’s a wonder someone hasn’t unexpectedly the children of the sky had no time carried you off in the night. Tell us, where do to prepare. She fell silently, when the stars were you come from? Where do you rest your head, at its brightest, and they couldn’t catch her. A my maiden?” A silent, golden smile, one that protective sleep overtook the star and she dreamt would put the brightest candle to shame, would soundly and of light. answer their queries. Sometimes she would even She fell slowly, comfortably, and it was near answer, “What concern of it is yours?” and tie morning when she landed in the sea, somewhere her question with a bow of laughter, to let them far away from anywhere you’ve been. The know she was teasing. But she never told. Her water rippled a little and accepted her without telling would be too risky. She knew her light any protest and she lay asleep at the bottom for was precious and that many would want it. three days and two nights. On the third night, She walked through the village every day and she awoke and knew a part of her was missing. returned to the sea at night to rest and tell the Her light, the thing that gave her identity as a fishes of her day. They would encourage her to star, was gone. Trapped at the bottom of the sea, keep seeking, the light must be somewhere near. how was her family supposed to find her if her And so she’d return to the village every morning light was gone? How would she belong? Earth and continue her search. was foreign and she had no place here. A new Barefoot, she would meander along the one sensation overtook her. It was elastic and thick lane village, stopping to talk to anyone that and moved about her form, settling in every happened to be out. The marketplace was her part of her. Panic. It was panic. She held herself favorite. Each stall in the market was visited, each tightly. Her light. She needed to find her light. It vendor made to feel the most important. Every was her only way home. item was given the utmost attention and care. The star let the water overtake her. She moved She never bought anything, but she was freely with its movements, swaying gently to calm offered anything she set her eyes on. Flowers and herself. The fish swam around her, whispering ribbons, herbs, spices, and things made from the encouragement, giving her advice and counsel. earth were at her disposal. By morning she knew she was going to have to “Surely you’ll have use for this?” the vendors find it herself. And to do that, she’d have to leave asked. Warmly, she would shake her head ‘no’ the water. and move on. She rose from the sea a woman, the morning So many beautiful things, but none of them was light enveloping her in pure whiteness. Women, what she needed. With every new item that was she reasoned, were regarded as softer. As least set before her, an eagerness appeared in her pale she thought so, judging by the interactions she eyes. She would handle each and every trinket, had seen from the sky. Soft and intimidating, the running her fingers over the textured surfaces perfect cover for retrieving a lost item. of this and that, scrutinizing and examining. But As she walked along the shore, the sun shone soon disappointment set in her delicate features. off her adopted curls, igniting sparks and A small sigh would escape and she’d set the item electricity between the folds of her tresses. She back down, only to replay this act with the next walked the path that led from the sea and the item. She could feel the pull of her light close by, wind delighted in blowing through her hair, and but with each passing day she found she was no only her hair it seemed, and created a rippling closer to locating the thing than when she started. blonde tail that mirrored a shooting star’s path. And what was worse, the pull was lessening. She felt the pull of her light, but didn’t know Her light was weakening. She didn’t know what

24 would happen once the light died. The children would sneak up on her during Whispers started to circulate between the market her visits to the marketplace, when she had her stalls. back turned. They would place delicate flowers “Who does this ragamuffin think she is? towards the bottom of her locks, their trills of Wandering around our village, not buying laughter giving them away each time. She would anything?” turn quickly and suddenly, causing an uproarious “Aye, it’s suspicious. For all we know, she shriek from the crowd of children. She would could be stealin’ from us. Right from under our then beckon them to her, the flowers held in her noses.” Aine heard their whispers and grew hair by some unseen force, and she would shake dismayed. She knew it would happen sooner or her head, twisting and turning every which way, later. People are only captivated for so long. bending over so her waves would envelop the Still, the tug of her light remained. It had to be children and tossing her head back so all the somewhere nearby. But Aine had been searching flowers would come loose and rain down upon and searching and still nothing had turned up. them. It pleased their parents to see someone act The children continued to put flowers in her so kindly towards their own and they allowed hair, but the delight was gone from their parent’s their questions to remain unanswered. eyes. They grew distrustful of her company and Like clockwork, Aine would arrive at dawn, the whispers continued to grow like surly weeds. when the sun was waking and depart when the “Why does she hang around our children so sun’s energy was spent. No one knew where she much? What could she want with them?” went, though many of the adults tried to follow They were too suspicious to ask Aine directly. her. But they would always get turned around on Fear is like that. You can never address it as it the path that led into the woods. The adults gave appears. Instead, fear is given sidelong glances up quickly. Adults always do. But the children and hushed voices that carry and circle around knew. everyone and everything, which only seeks to They followed Aine every night, unbeknownst fuel the force behind such an entity. to their parents. She noticed, of course, but never Each day, the villagers threatening voices grew said a word. She trusted the children more than until they were no longer whispers but blatant the adults because they knew no better. Down shouts. Aine stopped going to the market and the dirt path, always at a slow pace, she would instead took to pacing the outskirts of the village. stop occasionally and look up, soaking in the The children came to meet with her every day, evening with her arms outstretched. Fireflies never saying a word, only watching her pace. would dance toward her, drawn to the light she “She’s probably placing a hex upon us all,” gave off. They followed her through the woods, the village women said. “What have we done to a motley procession of lightning bugs and deserve such a curse?” children. A mile later, the sea would appear with The children ignored their parents’ fear. And nary a word spoken. Under the water she went, because of this, Aine decided to trust them with clothes and all, and would disappear beneath the their quest. waves. The children would watch at the edge of “Children,” she said to them one day as they the water. They would watch for some proof that gathered around the edge of town. “I’m looking Aine was there. But when you don’t know what for something.” The bravest boy, Martin, stepped you’re looking for, it’s easy to miss what’s clearly forward to speak for the group. He was small for in front of you. A dim glow would eventually his age, which was twelve, but bold and unafraid. appear, when the sun was completely gone, but “We can help you find it. What is it?” the children were too impatient to see her shine. “I’m not sure.” Aine hesitated. Should she Every night, the children would walk back confess her true nature or would that be revealing to the village and disagreements would break too much? “It’s an object that belongs to me but out over whether they should tell their parents. I don’t know what it looks like. But I can feel its But who would believe a grown woman living pull nearby.” underwater? What evidence did they have? “How come you don’t know what it looks So the children stayed quiet. like?” Martin asked. And the light remained lost. “I’ve never actually seen it. It’s always been a Now comes the sad part of the tale. part of me and I’ve never lost it.” It happened quickly. After two weeks, the “How are we supposed to look for it then?” villagers grew tired of her beauty and of the This left Aine stumped. way she shimmered. Their patience thinned as “I don’t know,” Aine answered. The words they realized Aine would never give away any left defeat hanging in the air. Aine melted to of her secrets. And she certainly wasn’t going the ground. “I fear it may be lost forever.” The to buy anything. The conversations weren’t as weight of Aine’s task settled fully on her heart friendly and there were no more offers of ribbons as she spoke, the hopelessness taking complete and flowers and things made from the earth. possession. Saltwater tears trickled down her

25 face and she let them lay there, too tired to wipe blackened face. “Please live, I found it.” Silence them away. took ahold of the crowd. Nothing happened. The children huddled close to her, too afraid to “Martin, get down from there. You’ll burn reach out and embrace Aine, but their nearness yourself!” His mother shouted from the edge of gave her courage. the rubble. “We’ll find it, Aine,” Martin spoke, sureness “It’s not hot, Mama.” He felt around. “It’s not resonating in his voice. even warm.” Martin’s mother tried to grab her The children began their search the next son but he refused to move. morning. Martin, of course, took the lead and “Fine. Stay out here all night if you want. But everyone fell in line behind him. He instructed she’s gone, Martin.” everyone to scatter through the field and told Soon, everyone started dispersing. They Aine to float between the children or tell them if walked home slowly, though the satisfied feeling she felt the pull for whatever she was searching of doing something right was not with them. for. The adults watched from the village, too Sleep did not come easy, and by morning, the cowardly to go out and grab their children, but village knew their execution had been a mistake. not too cowardly to talk loud enough for Aine Martin stayed near Aine, refusing to believe it to hear. The almost shouts of “Don’t you harm was over. Night came swiftly, begging to bring our children, you witch!” and “She’s cast a spell ease to his suffering. He fell into an exhaustive on them, I just know it,” only made Aine stand sleep. taller. They were just words, nothing but words, But the tale isn’t done, is it? and she continued with her search. No. At the end of the day, with hope almost lost, Eyes blinking. A slow recognition of being the children returned to their homes, empty- alive but in a very different way. The light had handed but determined to do better the next day. taken its time to work through her body. Slowly, But no more searching would be done. The Aine felt herself floating and knew she was children were looked over in their homes, their going home. She welcomed the return of her eyes checked for a witch’s trance, their pockets light, the feelings of wholeness, radiating rays of search for bitter herbs. Nothing was found, but brightness and energy. that didn’t soothe the parents worry. The children Bits of rubble and debris fell off her body in a were sent to bed without supper because adults shower of misunderstanding and mistake. It was need to take out their anger in some way. Each fortunate that some debris landed on Martin’s parent formulated a plan in their minds and with face, waking him. morning came an unspoken agreement to take He watched Aine rise but was too shocked care of Aine. to say anything. He thought he was dreaming. They found her walking the path to the village. To say anything would destroy everything. It They bound her with rope and carried her the would make Aine still dead. He would wake up. rest of the way. She didn’t protest, but instead But Aine felt Martin. It was the last thing she felt gave in to her resignation. A few townspeople as a human. She sent down a star’s whisper. A had stayed behind to set up the fire. A tall stake simple thank you and she was gone. She took centered the pile and it was upon this stake that her rightful place back in the sky, shining alone, Aine was tied. Nothing was said at the fire was though a little less radiant because of what had lit, but their faces gave everything away. been done to her on earth. Time slowed, but the flames were greater than And she still shines? time. Aine did nothing except look heavenward. Yes. She still shines. What happens if you kill a star? She did not know. She was so focused on the sky, she missed Martin as he tore through the crowd, something Emily Vater works for the Campbell County Public small and glowing in his hand. Library as an Information Services Assistant. She has He had gone out searching that morning. Out been married for 7 1/2 years and has a 2-year-old son by himself, deep into the woods before the sun named Aiden. She’s been published previously with had even broken. And he had found it. A little Hazardous Press and Timeless Tales Magazine and is glowing formless piece of light. This had to be it, currently working on a collection of short stories. he told himself. What other perfect thing could need to be found? He had ran as fast as humanly possible but it was too late. By the time he reached the front of the crowd the flames had consumed Aine and then, mysteriously, burned out. Martin broke through, climbing atop the simmering rubble, despite the crowd’s protest, and thrust the light into her charred hands. “Aine, I found it,” he whispered to her

26 f anyone could feasibly claim to bleed blue and white, Ryan Clark could with his numerous publications concerning the University of Kentucky’s Ibasketball program. Author or co-author of Fightin’ Words: Kentucky vs. Louisville (2016), Tales from the Kentucky Wildcats Locker Room: A Collection of the Greatest Wildcat Stories Ever Told (2013), 100 Things Wildcats Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die (2012), and Game of My Life Kentucky Wildcats: Memorable Stories of Wildcats Basketball (2012), Clark’s passion for the sports team is evident. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in editorial journalism at Western Kentucky University, his master’s degree in English at Northern Kentucky University, and his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Kentucky. Formerly a Clarion-Ledger and Cincinnati Enquirer journalist and a NKU new media editor and instructor, he currently works as a senior digital content strategist and instructor at Xavier University. Other works by Ryan Clark include the book Wrestling Reality: The Life and Mind of Chris Kanyon, Wrestling’s Gay Superstar (2011) and a collection of poems entitled Dusty Roads & Faded Signs (2009). His short stories, poems, and non-fiction have been featured in several literary journals, including NKU’s Licking River Review. Along with his wife, daughter, and two cats, Clark lives in Burlington, Kentucky.

27 In the Waiting Room

“He said something to me. You know, before they put him under.” “I’m sure he’s just worried.” “He said he hopes he doesn’t wake up.” “He didn’t mean it.” “I’m not so sure. You didn’t see his face. It’s been hard, these last few months. He was a proud man. Strong. Now…this.” “I know, remember. I was there. Every day.” “And that means the world to him. He loves you. But he’s getting tired of fighting.” “He didn’t mean it.” “What if he’s right?” “He’s my father.” “And he’s my husband. That has nothing to do with it. What’s there to live for anymore?” “Us. His family. The people who love him.” “You don’t think I love him?” “Of course I don’t’ think that.” “Then what?” “I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem…right.” “I know. I feel it, too.” “So why are we talking about this?” “I guess some part of me wonders if he isn’t right. It’d be so much easier for him. No more pain. No more machines sucking out his blood and returning it. No more sitting at home alone in that chair. Does that make me a monster?” “Yes? No? I don’t know. I wish you’d stop talking about it. It’s not up to us now, what happens to him. The doctors have him.” “You’re right. Maybe the waiting’s just getting to me.” “Yeah, maybe. I just don’t want him to die.” “Neither do I.” “But…” “But sometimes I wonder if he wouldn’t be better off. If we all wouldn’t be better off.” “Sometimes, so do I.”

Amber Whitley earned her MA from NKU in 2010. Her nonfiction has appeared in Breakwater Review, the Licking River Review, and various anthologies. Her fiction can be found under the pseudonym Katherine Wynter.

28 Talk of Sex and Politics in Central Asia and I next to Sasha. It was a long booth nestled in a dark corner of the restaurant, granting the t began with a napkin. illusion of privacy. The waitress – a pretty, young ethnic Kazakh “Of course,” Sue answered for us. Iwoman with a bright smile and long black hair – “Girl,” Sasha shouted, gesturing for the brought it over and sat it next to me, gesturing to waitress. She looked old enough to be his three middle-aged men sitting at a booth in the daughter, but I had gotten hardened to the way corner, smoke curling around their heads. They locals talked to waitresses. Sasha wasted no time waved. once she reached our dark nook. “Bring a bottle I looked questioningly over at my companions, of pepper vodka and some juice. Quickly.” Jackie and Sue. Why would someone send me a She turned and left to fill the order, her note? Sure, three female Americans eating at a expression carefully blank. I felt sorry for her but restaurant in Central Asia were bound to stand knew better than to cause a scene. In my years out, but Sue was definitely the prettiest of the as a waitress, I certainly wouldn’t have tolerated three of us: a tall, lean yoga instructor with close- that from a customer. But it wasn’t my place to cropped blonde hair. Overtures of romantic love say anything, or so I believed. or invites to join the table should have been In a matter of minutes, the waitress returned addressed toward her; however, I felt flattered with the drinks and several more glasses, placing that the note was for me. I could feel my cheeks them carefully around the table. getting flushed as Sue and Jackie gestured for me “Davai,” Dmitriy said from across the table, to open it. Surprisingly, it was written in English. opening the bottle and pouring everyone a shot. “Your hat is on the floor.” it said. “Let’s drink to you girls and safe sex!” Oh. I looked over and it was true: my hat had “To safe sex,” we echoed, glasses chinking. fallen on the floor. So much for romance. Sue downed her shot but Jackie and I only Still, it was interesting so we wrote back in drank half. Russian, “Thanks and next time we’ll look after “Drink to the end,” Sasha urged, his duty as your hat.” one of our hosts to bully us into drinking more. The restaurant was about half full of ethnic I thought of the toast to safe sex and the danger Slavs and Turks sampling all the niceties of of being drunk in a foreign country where I had American/Kazakh cuisine only available at the few people to call for help or who would come Atrium, a two-story building that housed the looking and chugged the rest of the shot. I knew biggest “Supermarket” in the area and was one better than to think he would relent. of the few places that we could go to get some The vodka was smooth, going down with a European/American food. The supermarket slight burn and leaving a soft aftertaste of pepper. featured mostly local food sold in aisle format – They had clearly bought the expensive stuff: the no elbowing through mobs of Soviet-Era trained average vodka felt like drinking gasoline and women still fearful that the food supply would chasing it with a lit match. A sip of juice added run out any minute – complete with check-out a hint of sweetness to balance it out. Definitely lanes and almost-smiling cashiers. If only they the best vodka I had drank, though the bottle I’d also sold sliced bread and peanut butter, it would shared with some friends named “Black Death have been perfect. But the restaurant, located Vodka” and bearing a skull and crossbones on opposite a very techno bowling alley, was a great the label won the award for most amusing and place to get a huge cheeseburger, French fries, accurately labeled bottle. and the closest thing to a chocolate shake for a “I like George W. Bush,” Serik randomly few thousand miles. asserted, his eyes noting our reactions. Of course, the prices were also astronomical, The comment surprised me, as I wasn’t used which explained the scarcity of local custom. Ten to hearing Muslims proclaim for Bush. I was, bucks back home wasn’t unreasonable for a nice however, used to facing questions about my dinner out, but when I lived off of a stipend of a government’s decisions, especially its tendency hundred dollars a month, the expense was a rare toward violence, and supporters of the then- luxury. Many local families lived off of less. current regime were few. Most of my local friends Gruff laughter erupted across the restaurant and coworkers had been equally astonished to as the three guys read our note. We had just realize that not all Americans liked Bush, just like finished eating, and when they gestured atus it eluded their comprehension that an American to join them the decision was an easy one. Three could in fact dislike Brittany Spears. We were guys, three girls, was it fate or coincidence? For Americans, right? Didn’t we all believe the same the next hour, Serik, Dmitri and Sasha were our things and like the same people? gracious hosts. “Why?” Jackie questioned. “Will you drink vodka?” Sasha asked after we “He is a good leader. Strong. Killing terrorists, were settled: Sue by Serik and Dmitiy and Jackie this is a necessary thing.” Sasha and Dmitri

29 grunted their assent as they poured another The guys shook their heads in disbelief, round of shots. “We Kazakhs are a peaceful somehow not dislodging the line of ash that had people. We don’t hurt anybody. We don’t allow already claimed a portion of their Cuban cigar. people like that to come live here.” Serik’s expression returned to one of deep, “The war is not to keep the country safe,” I drunken contemplation. “Two women together I countered, feeling a need to defend my beliefs. think is not natural. These women are sick. They “It is for oil. For money. Al-Qaeda attacked the have an illness.” US, not Saddam.” “No, it is not an illness,” I protested. “No, this is not true. The US doesn’t control the “Yes, it is” Dmitri responded from across the oil, the Arabs do. Saddam is an evil man.” table, voice adamant. “Davai, let’s drink to peace,” Dmitri “I could be a lesbian,” Sue suggested. interrupted, raising his glass and effectively They stared at us speechless, unable for a silencing the debate. moment to form words as I could almost read “To peace.” the debate flashing across their minds. Were we Sasha called the waitress over again and lesbians? Was it contagious? Should they leave? ordered something else, the only intelligible Finally, Serik stammered a quick denial. “No, it’s words were “smoke” and “Cuban”. I watched not true.” anxiously as the waitress returned with a “How do you know?” half dozen Cuban cigars, though skinny like “I know. You are not a lesbian.” At least Serik cigarettes. I took another long look at our stood by his guns, not backing down from the hosts. They had to be in their late 30s and wore heat. impeccably cleaned and maintained business Dmitri jumped in, leaning forward on the table suits while we stuck out in jeans and sweaters. in excitement. “Yes. It is an illness. It goes against Ethnic Kazakhs were moving up the ladder in nature for two women to have sex. A man and a business and government across Kazakhstan, woman, that is how it should be.” and these men seemed to be enjoying that new “Why?” prosperity. That they were business men of some “Women need men to protect them, to build sort was clear, as was the fact that they obviously them a home and provide for them. How will a had money. I didn’t want to know how much the woman be safe with another woman?” Cubans cost. “Women can take care of themselves,” I “Will you smoke with us?” Sasha asked, and countered, gesturing to include Jackie and Sue Jackie, Sue and I exchanged brief glances before in that group. “We are here without husbands or consenting. Absent the nicotine and filter on men to protect us and we live just fine.” traditional cigarettes, I figured one wouldn’t “You are not fine,” Sasha protested, one arm hurt. And I didn’t want to let my hosts down. At draped casually behind me on the back of the least, those sounded like good enough excuses at seat, his tone similar to what one would use to the time. address a particularly slow child who just didn’t I took a long pull on the cigarette, catching understand. “Kazakhstan is dangerous for a the musky taste of the smoke in my mouth woman alone, especially at night. There are dogs before exhaling. The flavor was rich, the smoke roaming the streets, some with only two legs. smooth, and I began to feel the effects almost You need a man to protect you, to make decisions immediately. Our waitress provided a small tray for you.” and I knocked the ashes off delicately. “We are quite capable of thinking on our own,” Had someone listened in on the table for the Jackie said. “Women can make their own choices next hour, only able to hear the sound of the and decisions. They don’t need someone else to glasses but nothing of the conversation, he or do it for them. If they want to be lesbians, they she would have suspected that a breeze blew can be lesbians. If they don’t want to get married, through the area every few minutes, evidenced they don’t get married. That simple.” by the clinking of glass wind chimes. And that’s Serik leaned across the table and I thought how it felt drinking, a new shot every five or for a moment that he was going to take Jackie’s ten minutes always accompanied by a toast and hand. “No. A woman’s place is serving her the lighthearted ring of glass on glass contact as husband. Obeying her husband. She should not regular as a summer breeze blowing across my make decisions on her own. It is a shame to the porch back home. husband if his wife must work. It means he is not Somehow, we got on the topic of lesbianism as a man. The wife’s place is home.” a natural successor to politics. By this point the conversation had been “Is it true that there are lesbians in America?” lubricated with a couple more shots and the men Serik asked, his eyes half fearful and half hopeful grew more and more intense by the moment, of the answer. their deep desire to right the wrongs of our “Yes,” Sue answered. “Of course, there are.” thinking as evident as the line of ash still clinging

30 to the remainder of the cigar. How did they keep it from falling off? I waited anxiously for them to knock their ashes on the tray but to no avail. They just hung there in blatant defiance of gravity. “I obey no man.” Dmitri grabbed Sue’s hand and held it to his heart. “Marry us,” he proposed on behalf of his friends. “We have money. You can become Kazakh citizens, live here with us. Then you won’t have to go home,” Sasha was quick to add, his arm tightening around my shoulder. I wanted to squirm. “Yes. Please. We will fly you home once a year to see your family. That is enough, I think.” It was difficult to tell whether they were joking or serious, but regardless I didn’t want to become any man’s second or third wife. Jackie and Sue were thinking something similar I could tell; it was getting time for us to make our exit. “Thank you for the offer, but we can’t,” Jackie said, taking the lead. “Our family back home would miss us too much.” “Yes, my mother would be very upset,” I added truthfully. “Davai, girls. We will take good care of you.” Now each one of them had one of our hands. Sasha was stroking mine lightly, as though illustrating how gentle he could be. They made moon faces at us, expressions pouty and needy, eyes bloodshot from the alcohol. I tried to pull my hand away but he just held on tighter. I knew that he would let go eventually, after enough protests. At least I hoped so. “No, we can’t.” “Well then, at least let us buy your friend Sue,” Dmitri offered in way of compromise. Sue laughed. “You don’t have enough money.” “Come, please,” Dmitri continued, not backing down. Only this time he addressed Jackie and myself. As though we had the right or means of selling our friend. “I’ll give you two thousand dollars for her.” “No, she’s not for sale,” I protested as Jackie began sliding out of the seat. “Thank you for the vodka and the company, but it’s late and we must be going.” Sue slid out of the seat, her hand still in Dmitri’s possession. He looked like a drunk love- sick puppy. “Please,” he protested a final time. “I’ll take good care of her. It’s a good offer.” “No, we can’t,” Jackie said, finally shaking off Serik’s hand. “Thank you for everything.” “Na zdrovye,” Dmitri said, finally letting go of Sue but not before kissing her hand beseechingly. She laughed and said “Dosvedaniya.”

31 . L. Barth is a 1973 (then Northern Kentucky State College) graduate and completed a Master of Arts in 1980 at Stanford University, where he was a RStegner Fellow in Poetry. Barth also won the first ever Bill Byron Award from NKU. In the 1980’s to the early 2000’s Barth was a publisher to over 200 books of poetry from various authors. In 1999, he edited Yvor Winters’ collection of poems for Ohio University Press. Then in 2000, he published The Selected Letters of Yvor Winters and The Selected Poems of Janet Lewis. Barth was a Marine Patrol Leader in the First Reconnaissance Battalion in Vietnam. Today he is a poet who writes in classical satire style about the reality of war. In his most recent collection, Deeply Dug In, he writes about Vietnam. Barth is currently working on a series of poems about Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam. He currently resides in Edgewood, KY.

32 Down Deep

On summer afternoons, I walked down to the docks, wrapped twine around raw chicken necks and dangled them like marionettes into Spa Creek. I wiped the grime on denim shorts and sat.

Worn planks left splinters in my thighs. Oyster boats passed; sometimes the captains waved. The sunlight turned my long hair white, my forehead red. I tasted salt.

When a string grew taut, I plunged my net down deep and jerked it up. Blue crab pincers clung to bones, tore flesh, devoured any part that dared be soft. To surface such a brutal feast felt like betrayal.

Mary Anne Reese earned her MA in English from NKU in 2012. She has two poetry chapbooks, “Raised by Water” and “Down Deep,” both from Finishing Line Press. When she isn’t writing, she practices law, swims, and watches for hawks.

33 Where I Am From*

I am from washing my sari in a bucket before dawn, from brushing my teeth with ash. I am from incense and curry wafting through our halls, from dreams of chocolate and ice cream. I am from tracing the trenches between a child’s ribs, from kissing nubs where fingers used to be. I am from hours waiting on this mat before a cross. You used to talk to me, but not in fifty years. I fear you do not want me anymore. I am from bare feet, naked desire.

*Teresa of Kolkata (1910-1997)

34 spot on the Daedalus, too. Now, he was stuck with this rookie on a new ship. A worse ship. We are in the hands of the Gods, Elias thought. The Castaway “They say Graham’s is as blue as—.” Elias backhanded the kid. Not too hard, but just We are in the hands of the Gods, Elias thought. enough to get him to focus on the job at hand. Standing in the aft bulkhead of the Icarus, he It felt good. The boy grimaced and rubbed his closed his gloved hands into fists and flexed cheek. Any hint of a smile on his pudgy white them. His pulse quickened and his face flushed. face was gone, the skin pulsing red as he turned There was nothing like the experience of a back to Elias. salvage op. He had been on thousands, but right “What…whatcha do that for?” before each one it always felt like his first. “This isn’t a sight-seeing cruise and it ain’t “How did you lose your last salvage mate?” no kitchen,” Elias said, the stench of fabricated the greenhorn that had been paired with him cooking oil still ripe on the boy. “Repeat back what asked. I told ya about what to do once that door opens.” “Pay attention to what you’re doing,” Elias Elias motioned to the bulkhead door they would said, gravel in his words. He motioned to the squeeze through once the ship was a thousand kid’s gear he had been fiddling with longer than meters away from the drifting Hawthorne. Twelve necessary. pairs of men in full gear strung out in front of “My name’s Cole,” the greenhorn said, them like a bunch of married couples. scrunching his nose as he looked down at his “Follow your lead,” the kid said, his voice shielding cowl and messed with its straps. “I’ve wavering as he rubbed his face. “You’ll signal told you that before.” when to use my propulsion and what direction.” “Whatever.” Elias didn’t need to remember the “Why?” kid’s name. In fact, he had tried hard not to. The boy scratched his head. “Because we only The cabin shuddered. The ship juked left then have enough for the trip out. We have to hitch a right, and then clanged like a giant bell, probably ride back on the scrub.” from a small piece of debris from the drifting Elias and every member of the salvage crew destroyer, Hawthorne. Elias steadied himself called the automated extraction units scrubs since on the scorching bulkhead with one hand. He they would come in after their scans and scrub grabbed the kid with his other so he wouldn’t away all the usable material. Elias had seen them fall flat on his face. cut into hulls with surgical precision on nearly The pilots would get them to the drop off point every op, allowing each team to gather up the for their salvage job. They had to. The pitting on goods and pack them into containers. The scrubs the outside of the Icarus didn’t look near as bad were also their ride back to the Icarus. as some ships Elias had been assigned to. It was Supplies were also lean. When were they not? too early for this one to break apart. Elias was used to only getting what he needed, “They say you can see Graham’s Maelstrom nothing more. Sometimes, a whole lot less. out there,” the greenhorn said after steadying That included scrounging salvage mates from himself, his blue eyes wide, Elias’s inattention wherever they could get them when the crew seemingly forgotten. The boy wiped sweat from thinned deep into a salvage run. Kitchen staff, his forehead with the back of his hand. “Is it cleaning crews, whatever. The 105th Salvage true?” He had also forgotten about the cowl he Division would test Elias and every other crew hadn’t yet properly secured. by stretching their supplies out for another few “Hmmm.” Damn kid was about as good at days until the end of the run. The quartermaster focusing as the fucking pilots steering this rust was a real son of a bitch, and thought it good bucket. He had already asked about the damn motivation to hold back a little. The Gods damn storm three times since they moved into the aft woman only gave them enough juice to get out to cargo bay. The kid would need a damn good the Hawthorne; not enough to get back. Something spread of luck if he were to get through his first about the scrubs using fuel more efficiently. salvage op alive. “And what else?” Elias cocked an eyebrow Elias ignored the question and cinched the at the kid, and went back to checking the rest kid’s shielding cowl tight across his shoulders. of his gray shielding suit while the kid sweated His fingers ached from the effort. The straps out the answer. No visibly broken seals. Jets intact. weren’t rotted too bad. It better hold for this op, he Propulsion tank secure. Gravity gloves and boots thought. Elias didn’t need to lose another salvage charged. At least he put the fucking thing on right. It mate so soon after he had lost Marshal. Marshal wasn’t in the best of shape, but it would do. If the was a good man, but he had made a mistake. kid lived long enough, he would eventually earn Lost a day’s quota on that one. Elias had lost his enough to get a better one once they regrouped

35 with the main fleet. pull. It was dangerous to approach it, but it “You’ll…you’ll tell me when to engage my couldn’t be ignored during a time of war. Elias gravity wells and the scanning net?” The kid knew from experience that rogue scavengers unconsciously lowered a hand until it hovered wouldn’t have had enough time to pick the over each sensor on his belt as if he was checking ship completely clean of working electronics, with Elias to see if he had gotten it right. fuel cells, ammunition, and other resources. The Elias backhanded the boy across his other Armada needed every scrap of resource it could cheek, harder this time. “The green one comes get its hands on. Salvage ships like the Icarus first and the red one is for the scanning net,” Elias trailed the main fleet, picking the bones clean reminded him. “Got it?” and getting the goods to courier ships that would The kid leaned away from Elias and nodded speed them toward the front lines. frantically. Elias and his new salvage mate reached the “If you press the wrong one at the wrong time, cargo door after the last pair in front of them that means wasted time and missed quota. At fanned out from the ship. least those things, maybe worse.” Elias detached We are in the hands of the Gods, Elias thought as his plasma torch from its magnetic harness and he turned to the kid. tested it. It lit up the dimly lit cabin, splashing a “Do as I told ya,” Elias said. blue glow across the kid’s face. “So, focus now.” Elias engaged the jets on his belt and motioned Elias put out the torch and stuck it back to his for the kid to do the same. Elias drifted towards belt. the starboard side of the Hawthorne, the flexible “Thirty seconds to zone,” a staticy voice echoed cable that joined them ratcheting out as he through the aft cabin. Lights winked on inside distanced himself from his partner. Out of the the cramped space, spraying red onto the walls corner of his viewscreen, he saw the greenhorn and the cooling tubes and the men. Steam rolling drifting to port. off the bulkhead was visible in the crimson glow. Elias smiled. Well, he done the first thing right. “Get your helmet on,” Elias said, checking the The kid gasped through Elias’s comms, carbon-polymer harness that would keep the but Elias knew it wasn’t from the slowly kid and him together. He grabbed his helmet corkscrewing Hawthorne. Graham’s Maelstrom attached to his belt by a thin cable dangling framed the dead ship, its bright blue and white down to his knees. He put it on and slid the tentacles sprouting out behind the destroyer locking bolt into place. Once he heard the hiss of like a giant squid about to swallow its prey. oxygen and smelled the rust-tinged air, he knew The storm’s energy and dust-hazed outline he was ready. writhed as the core of the storm spun slowly out The kid took another ten seconds to secure of sight. As long as each salvage team and the his helmet. Elias waited for him to finish. Elias Icarus kept the Hawthorne in between them and flipped the COM toggle on his belt to on. He the maelstrom, its gravity well wouldn’t faze motioned for the boy to do the same. them. Once attached to the ship, as long as they “Do ya read me?” were careful, men could scamper across the hull “Yes.” regardless of which side they were on. The familiar clunk of machinery at Elias’s The maelstrom was swallowed up by the feet shook the cabin. The bulkhead door shadowy Hawthorne as Elias and the kid closed cracked open and the aft cabin’s gravity wells the distance. Elias motioned for the boy to disengaged. Elias’s stomach flipped a little as his maneuver underneath some floating debris from feet lost contact with the floor, but he kept his the dead ship a few times, but they were never eyes focused on the blue light washing into the in any real danger. After a few minutes, they cabin. He swallowed the buildup of saliva in his managed to reach the hull of the ship without the mouth and took a deep breath. kid screwing anything up. Hopefully the boy would do the same and not “Now,” Elias said, simultaneously thumbing throw up in his suit. He looked a bit green, but the green sensor on his belt. His teeth strummed hadn’t lost it yet. and a buzzing filled his ears. His hands and feet Each team drifted through the door into space, grew heavy as they drifted towards the baking jets of air sprouting on their propulsion belts skin of the Hawthorne. The maelstrom had heated like blossoms of flowers. They spread apart after up the hull, but now it was cooling in its own exiting the Icarus. They positioned themselves shadow as it spun—thermal currents distorting for the approach to their assigned areas where the surface. Elias’s suit was designed to take the they would scan the ruined hulk of scrap metal kind of heat the storm gave off at this distance, hovering just outside of Graham’s Maelstrom. but only for a short time. Fifty thousand metric tons of ship perched A quick glance to port told Elias that the kid itself at the edge of the maelstrom’s gravitational had pressed the right sensor and clung to the

36 ship fifty or so meters from him. Not bad. Their ya came from off one of the Lee Shore planets. propulsion fuel would be nothing but fumes Focus. On. The job.” now. “How did you know I—.” Elias ran through a few quick calculations in “Focus.” his head based on the rate he had seen the ship The kid shut his trap and didn’t mutter spinning. He realized they would move from another word. Elias had seen enough greenhorns cold to hot and back to shadow fast enough so to know where the kid had come from. Looking there wouldn’t be any permanent damage. Elias for adventure or some shit like that. Not Elias. could handle being sick for a few days as long as Adventure was for the idealistic sort, not he was ready for the next job and this one paid pragmatic men. off. After an hour or so, they had completed half “Ready?” a dozen more scans. The length of the topmost “Yes,” the kid said, his words unsteady. tentacles of Graham’s Maelstrom were fully Elias pivoted on the toes of his boots, the pitch visible now, the top rim of its core cresting like a and intensity of the energy in his suit ebbing as sunrise on one of the Lee Shore planets. it adjusted the magnetic pull with his movement. It’s gonna get hot soon. Elias’s view screen The kid was already facing him. A few pairs of darkened from the flow of radiation from the men were still moving above them in a strange maelstrom’s core peaking on the steel horizon. looking sort of dance, their tethers like long Elias pivoted again as the core rose on the umbilical cords that kept them reliant on one steel skyline of the Hawthorne. The carbon- another. Some of the teams slipped inside the polymer cable shot out and created its scanning Hawthorne through breaches in its hull—melted net. The heat inside Elias’s suit swelled, drops slag formed around the edges like clotted gray of sweat already forming on his forehead inside blood. Their assignments were to scan the insides his helmet. The humming in his ears increased for any working equipment or other resources. as his suit’s cooling system compensated for the Less dangerous than Elias’s assignment. increase in temperature. We are in the hands of the Gods, Elias thought The net adhered to the ship’s seared skin. Elias again. had to look more closely at the net as energy arced “The red one next,” Elias said. “On my mark. across it due to the light from the maelstrom. For Three. Two. One. Mark.” Elias pressed the red a few seconds the net glowed steadily and then sensor on his belt. The kid followed his lead. began to contract and fade. Elias waited for the Energy surged through Elias’s suit, the buzz scan to complete so they could move on. in his ears intensifying. The tether connecting Instead, the amber glow contracted until it him with the kid lit up in brilliant white. The reached a section of the hull a dozen or so meters energized cable flattened, stretching out until it wide and half a dozen long. The glow intensified shot out to the left and right perpendicular to and didn’t dissipate. It was the brightest scan the length of the cable, creating a thin canvass Elias had ever seen. that dropped to the hull. The net used the same “Ya seeing what I’m seeing?” Elias said. gravity mechanism as their suits, and matched “Well, it’s still coming across gold out there in the curve of the Hawthorne. It adhered to the the middle, right?” the kid said. ship’s hull fifty by fifty meters square. “You’re damn straight it is,” Elias said. “And Another surge through Elias’s suit. Amber not just gold. It’s real bright. Real bright.” After light shot out from Elias and the kid across all this time, could he get this lucky? A signal that the net. The waves of energy connected in the strong could mean a fully intact shielding array. middle, and winked out after a few seconds. It could mean a jump up the ladder to a better “Nothin’,” Elias said, trying to keep the ship that would normally take him years. disappointment out of his voice. “Time to move The whir of the cooling unit in Elias’s suit rose, on to the next grid assignment.” There was a the core of the maelstrom fully visible. Brilliant chance that all the shielding arrays had been white and blue light washed over the hull as fried from the assault or the ship’s crew had Elias’s body lifted towards the maelstrom. He destroyed their cargo and systems before they could hear and feel his suit working hard to died or abandoned ship. compensate for the increase in gravity trying to Elias had heard it had been one hell of a fight. wrench his body away from the Hawthorne. He “You never told me what happened to your crouched down closer to the hull, the warmth last partner,” the kid piped in after a few more flowing through his shielding gloves. scans. He was trying, Elias had to give him that. “Wow!” Cole said. “I’ve never seen anything “You’re right,” Elias said. “I never told ya and I like it.” don’t plan to. All ya need to focus on is your job. “Now’s not the time to stargaze. Retract your So, no stories about ma or pa or whatever farm scanning net on my mark so we can call in the

37 scrubs to get this salvage going. You ready?” No We are in the hands of the Gods, he thought once response. “Kid!” more. “Yes…yes, I’m ready,” the kid said, his words Elias’s face hardened. He looked back to his distant, unfocused. drifting salvage mate. “On my mark. Three. Two. One. Mark.” Elias He flicked on his plasma torch and sliced thumbed the red button again, the scanning net through the carbon-polymer tether in one steady on his side retracting. The kid’s portion of the motion. Elias’s feet dropped back down to the scanning net was still fully deployed, which Elias Hawthorne. thought odd. It lifted away from the hull like a Cole drifted through the ether, shadowed wayward spider web drifting in the breeze. against the majesty of Graham’s Maelstrom. His “Oh my Gods!” the kid screamed. Elias saw arms and legs flailed like a castaway treading the boy slipping away from the Hawthorne in the water in the middle of the sea. His body formed brilliant light, fiddling with his belt frantically a dark pupil in the center of the storm. trying to get the gravity unit to engage. Elias imagined the maelstrom was the Earth’s Pressed the wrong damn sensor is what he did. sun, shining down on a great ocean. He saw the It was too late. The maelstrom’s gravity well multitudes, Gods-omnipresent. The firmament was too powerful for the suit to manage. The boy of waters were heaved by the blue colossal orb. tried to use his propulsion jets, sporadic puffs He saw the Gods’ feet upon the treadle of the coming out of the nozzles on his belt until they loom. winked out completely. We are in the hands of the Gods, Elias thought as “Help me!” The scanning net retracted and he turned back towards the hull of the Hawthorne. the cable stretched out taut, pulling Elias’s He pressed the sensor that called in his scrub midsection. unit, and made his way to the spot marked by Gods damn it. I told him to focus. their last scan. The cable lifted Elias out of his crouch, one of his hands peeling off the hull. The heat of the maelstrom beat down on him. Elias could try and pull the kid to safety, but it would be Patrick McGee is a graduate of Northern Kentucky risky. One mistake and he could drift away just University earning an MA in English and a BA in like that idiot. Trying to save him meant time. Political Science. His work has previously appeared Time for another crew to come along and stake in the Roanoke Review, The Licking River Review, A their claim. Time that would be taken away Clean, Well-Lighted Place, Vayavya, and the Journal from gathering the salvage. Time that meant the of Kentucky Studies. He lives in Florence, Kentucky, difference between living and dying. with his wife, two kids, a dog named Boomer, and the Elias’s other hand was pulled free by the three cats that torment him. maelstrom. We are in the hands of the Gods, Marshal—Elias’s last salvage mate—had said before he was cut loose. We are in the hands of the Gods. Marshal’s last words stuck with Elias like the smell of grease that had taken up permanent residence in his nose. Even Marshal understood that every man weighed the risks against their life in this kind of work. You risk another man’s life, you could forfeit your own. Elias thought he saw Marshal smile in those final moments. Elias unhitched the plasma torch from his magnetic belt, his arm stretching out toward the maelstrom. It took some effort to bring the torch closer to the harness. He felt his feet lift, the maelstrom’s gravity well forcing him to the tips of his toes. Not much time now. “What are you doing? Help me! Please, help me! You can’t let—.” Elias flipped his comms off, a lump forming in his throat. He swallowed hard and looked down at the gray hull of the Hawthorne.

38 matched the pitch of my caged bird screaming “I quit!” I steered the car into the shoulder and yanked on the emergency brake before I had even released the gas. With gritted teeth, I pounded I Used to Be in the Practice of Dreaming the words into the middle of my steering wheel to the tune of “Fuck this! Fuck this!” The horn of used to be in the practice of dreaming, of being the car was a siren for my frustration to the trees lost in thought, lost from myself and the time and uncaring cars passing me on the ramp. Each Iclocks and expectations. I’d take vacations in my punch pushed the caged bird further and further mind while I drove my car on highways that up my throat, squeezing its way through muscles stretched on like rubber bands pulled around the in my esophagus that had worked so hard the world. When I chose to be a recluse in the dish last few months to keep any rising contents room of the pizza shop, my thoughts would drift down, until finally it bursted out of my throat away with the soap bubbles as I scrubbed the and through the screen that tormented me with mountains of pans in endless, automatic circles. crawls and countdowns and self-judgements, I dreamt of worlds beyond mirror panes, lands leaving it shattered like teeth. that worked under the order of strange sciences, I slumped back into my seat, my chest rising realities belonging only to the formation of suds and sinking further than it had before, now empty. in the sink. But I dreamed less now. Behind my There were cars puttering by, wind buffeting my eyes now were the graphics that littered the windows, and music thwump’ing in the distance, television screen when Mom watched the nightly yet there was silence. I exhaled and my lungs news. The thin crawl that casually informed didn’t shake. I inhaled to capacity. I unclipped viewers about humanity’s rapid descent listed my seatbelt just to feel nothing constricting me the (unexaggerated) hundreds of submitted because right then I felt unrestrained. I breathed job applications that were rejected or went in again and exhaled a list of nots. I did not want completely ignored. The “Upcoming Stories” to wash dishes. I did not want to wait tables. I anticipated the days in which my standards for did not want to live in Ohio. I did not want to a career search will drop even further. There was work at a PR firm. I did not want to write. I did a countdown time in the upper righthand corner not want to dream. I did not want to do anything ticking away the months until my behemoth I had been doing or trying to do for the past five student loan payments would begin. And in the years. I wanted to do something absurd and center of my attention screamed the headline in unpredictable to even myself. I want to move to all capital letters, “EVERYONE IS WATCHING Asia. YOU BURN.” Asia. The place of mist and mountains and rice. Ohio winters did little for the bird caged in The place that was the farthest possible place my chest who raged against the bars desperate from this goddamn entrance ramp. The place for the warm air and a strong tailwind. When that was so unthinkably far away that my dish it snowed, the hills that created the valleys suds fantasies never even tickle the possibility, and winding rivers looked pleasant; almost yet it pinged in my mind so unprovoked that picturesque, but this winter had been dry. The it seemed as if it had only been buried under a land was a convention of bald men as the ground fine coat of dust this whole time. My stomach rippled with brown, bulbous lumps hard with levitated at the idea because no one, not even me, frozen mud and stubbly dead grass. would expect me to do something so ridiculous. If you have been raised in the same location, But it was Asia, and I was just a midwestern schooled there, played there, grown there, kid with a car, bills, and a career to start. The self- learned there, and remained unmoving there for deflation I had practiced so well brought me back sixteen years, then anyone would tell you that down to my car seat. Slowly, I clipped myself in you belonged there. But that’s the thought that again and merged onto the highway. made me grip the steering wheel on my way It was a snowflake moment, my friend at the to work that morning like a python’s neck. The restaurant told me later that day. She was a free- venom in the notion that I belonged to something spirited woman who did yoga instead of drank as ugly, as barren, as this desaturated land of coffee and addressed me as “my friend”. She told broken dreams was enough to have me frothing me that people are too busy making their ways at the mouth. Then, like a prod with the devil’s here and there in their hurried rushes that they pitchfork, a white Dodge swerved in to cut me never pay the snow any mind. Some see it as a off at the entrance ramp to the interstate, leaving nuisance more than anything. They bow their a cloud of go-fuck-yourself smoke to choke out heads, shield their eyes, and war against the my windshield. I stomped on the brake pedal winds to get to whichever important place they with so much force that the squeal of the tires were getting off to today, and when they get to

39 where they’re going they brush off the crusted- up ice without even a thought. “I don’t do that,” she told me. “Whenever there is snow, I stop right there in the middle of wherever I am, and I stick out my tongue. When that snowflake hits your tongue, you can feel it’s chill, but only for a moment—a ‘snowflake moment’—because by the time you try to focus on it, the chill is gone and you’ve missed it. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there isn’t a whole lot of snow coming down these days,” she said, as well as I can remember. “Don’t miss it.”

his is the final boarding call for Seoul to Dallas, Texas. Please, will all guests make Ttheir way to gate 11 for boarding.” I used to be in the practice of dreaming, of wishing upon stars, of whispering “what-if’s” into my pillow at night. For the past two years, I had not dreamed. Stars had passed by my window unwished. My pillow grew lonely. And I hadn’t prayed for another snowfall. As I handed my ticket to the gate attendant, I felt a tip as if I was standing on the deck of a ship, like what one feels as they begin to sober from a long and deep slumber. I pressed my mind to remember everything I could before they escaped me like dreams always do. I remembered temples tucked away in mountain nooks, glassy waters that hide nothing below them, beaches made of obsidian pebbles, food that could warm or wriggle your insides, land that rippled and jutted and towered to the clouds. I know that these words pay no tribute to the essence of Asia, but I fear I would only serve the beauty of this continent an injustice if I tried any longer. “Your seat is 21A, sir.” “Thank you.”

used to be in the practice of dreaming, and, as I sit awake in the bed of my mother’s basement, I am trying to find a way to get back in the habit.

Ryan Krebiehl graduated from Northern Kentucky University in December of 2014 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English with a concentration in creative writing. He spent the next two years teaching kindergarten English in the neon metropolis of Seoul, South Korea. While abroad, Ryan fell in love with the wonders of Asia and plans to use his experiences to shape his writing.

40 My Sister’s Bones

The back yard looks like her face. Flat surfaces consistent colors green with envy. Her eyes were mud, and she stared whether she loved you or hated you.

I could never catch her when she ran. Two years too small and the other kids were bigger too. Sometimes the wind will whisper her name. I wonder if it’s mocking laughing imitating how I used to stumble after her, calling, unable to fit my feet properly in her hand-me-down shoes.

Nikki Moore is a 2015 NKU English Department graduate. She has been previously published in Loch Norse Magazine, Issues III and IV.

41 Borders

We’re in the middle of somewhere – landlocked greens in gradients vining along the edges.

When the end of the earth was tangible toes hanging from the cusp of crust and then outward just air just space just something else, I would have taken you somewhere. If my lungs weren’t drowned in ivy and my feet weren’t full of sand. If my moral compass pointed north I’d drive you to Lake Huron and trace your veins, tiny blue rivers, while we watched the water amble somewhere.

But I’ve no sense of direction and you can’t speak, and we are still landlocked, hovering at the end of the earth.

42 Gravity of Her her body pulled in the tides tugging like a child’s hands at the hem of her skirt sea gushing against her bones she looked at the moon and saw home waning half, and she’d fit well filling in the dark of the unlit side she was good at that the strongest thing you’ll never see

43 six-year-old twin boys had to complete for school. The hall is empty now, all of the kids with their knotted hair and ripped jeans have slipped into the doors lining the corridor. I push myself away Modeling Life from the wall and look for room 324, hating the way my loafers click-clack against the floor. Alex The school steps are slick marble with a worn was right. I should have worn tennis shoes. valley in the center. I keep to the side as I climb to Room 324 is all the way at the end of the hall. the third floor, fearful of slipping and dropping Instructors shut their doors as I click-clack past. the tackle box of vine charcoal and sharpened HB The room is big, like an old warehouse that pencils I bought just this morning. The students someone in New York would turn into a trendy who surge past me are all younger. Twenty years loft. Except it smells like turpentine, and the younger at least. They reach the third floor, walls are splattered with paint and gray streaks breath intact and foreheads clear of perspiration, where students have cleaned their kneadable even though it’s August, and the school is a erasers. The concrete floor is also dotted with red one-hundred-year-old building that lacks air and yellow paint. It looks like a Jackson Pollock conditioning. painting. I stop at the top of the stairs to catch my breath There is a platform in the middle of the room, and to reposition the 18x24 sketch pad under my maybe a foot high, holding a stool, a white sheet arm. All of this seemed so much easier the first puddled on the floor, and a woman wrapped time I went to school, when I was young and in a pink terry cloth robe. Seventeen easels are equally concerned with landing a boyfriend and arranged in a horseshoe around the platform. landing a job. Of course, I’m not a real student. I am not the oldest person in the room, but I I’m only here for a community education class, am far from the youngest. I choose an easel off but I feel the same way I did when I was seven, to the side of the room and try to set up my stuff waiting for the bus and sure I would vomit the while ignoring the woman on the platform. Her minute my mother let go of my hand. skin is latte brown, and her close cropped hair The problem is the class. Beginning Figure reveals the curve of her skull and the slant of Drawing. I’m not a serious artist, recently all her cheekbones. She is younger than most of the of my artistic expression has been funneled students, and I wonder how she can stand up through Crayola, but I do draw a mean bowl there, talking with two women on the other side of fruit. Unfortunately, there is no fruit in this of the room as if everything is normal. As if in a class. Instead, we will be drawing people. Naked few minutes, she won’t drop her robe and reveal people. At forty-two you would think I’ve what most of us spend a life time trying to cover overcome the urge to giggle when I see someone up. naked in public, but I haven’t mastered that one A few men are scattered among the women yet. in the class. Most are the type you’d expect to I wouldn’t have signed up for the class at all, see in an art class. Even the ones in their thirties but I made the mistake of talking to the director have long hair either twisted into dreadlocks of the program before registering. When I or clasped back in a ponytail. So when a man showed him my fruit--a bowl of apples, a bowl who looks about my age walks into the room of oranges, and a particularly tricky mix of with brown hair that falls only to his shoulders, apples and oranges with a banana thrown in just instead of the middle of his back, I think he must to shake things up--he said, “Laura, you need to be the teacher. Like the rest of us, he carries a move up a level. Try the figure drawing class. portfolio and tackle box, but instead of the cheap Once you’ve mastered the human figure, you can plastic most of our boxes are made of, his box is move on to anything.” pale maple with brass clasps. Oh, and the most And because he was the first person in years obvious difference, he looks like Daniel Day to compliment me on something other than my Lewis. ability to change a diaper on the floor of a car in But he doesn’t stop in the center of the room. under a minute, I signed up. Instead, he crosses the room, nodding to the “Figure drawing?” Alex had said when I told model as if he’s seen (and I mean seen) her before, him. “So the people will be naked?” and drops his sketch pad on the easel next to “Yeah,” I said. And then I giggled. mine. Every woman in the room turns to stare at “Well, it’s your deal,” he said with a half-smile me, as if having the luck to have the easel next to and shrugged. He looked like he wanted to say his is The Unpardonable Sin. more, but life pulled us apart. The dog barked, He smiles as he drags over a paint splattered and when Alex returned from letting her out, I stool. Then he clicks open the maple box and was elbow deep in a dried macaroni project our pulls out a new set of Winsor and Newton Willow

44 Charcoal sticks, the kind I almost let myself buy. robe and lets it slide from her shoulders, with To hide my staring, I turn around and fiddle the same ease most people shed their coats. Of with my stuff. The easel is too high, but I’m used course most people have clothes on under their to having to miniaturize things. I reach around coats, and she is naked. The only good thing is and try to loosen the bolt that allows the tray to I’m too scared to giggle. slide up and down, but it is old and sticks. I brace She is thin, like a twelve-year-old girl, but her myself and try again. It moves a little so I wrap hips are full and a gold loop pierces one of her my hand all the way around the bolt and tug. nipples. A flesh colored band aide covers the The easel falls over. Right into Mr. Day Lewis’ other one. Her stomach is a scooped out bowl. double. It claps him on the shoulder then falls “Want me to do some quick poses first?” she asks onto the stool where it cracks his maple box, tips the teacher. it over and scatters his charcoal across the floor. He nods and tacks up the sheet as a backdrop I feel like the kid who has dropped her tray in on the wall behind her. “Start with two minute the lunch room. I am sure my face is pinker than poses, then we’ll do some five minute ones, and the model’s robe. end with two thirty minute poses.” “Oh God, I’m sorry,” I say as I chase a charcoal As she gets ready, draping one arm across her stick that rolls across the floor and disappears stomach and letting the other trail off to the right, under the baseboard heater. I stick my fingers as if reaching for something, the instructor turns under there, but only come out with a handful of to the class. “Move fast. Big strokes. Just block cobwebs and dust balls. out the shape first. Get the proportions right and “Here,” I say, “take one of mine.” I flip the the rest will follow. And go.” He clicks a stop latch to my box and pull out a stick of charcoal, watch. vine instead of willow and much cheaper, but I Everyone else seems to know what he’s talking feel I have to do something. about. They nod and start making small hash “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “I’ve got a marks on their newsprint. Since my recent figure drawer-full of these at home.” The faint lines drawing experience has been amusing my pre- around his eyes crinkle when he smiles. schoolers with sidewalk chalk stick figures, I “I’m Evan, by the way.” He sticks out his hand, slide my eyes over to Evan’s paper. Three faint fingertips stained with charcoal. hash marks divide his paper. He catches me “Laura. Or klutz. Whichever you prefer.” I spying on him and smiles, pulling the blood to take his hand. It’s rough with calluses along my face again. the fingertips and paint buried under the nails. I make a small oval at the top of my sheet. Then When I pull my hand away, the dust from his I lean back and glance at Evan’s paper again. fingers coats the creases in my hand. With only four lines, he has blocked out the girl’s The instructor walks in and saves me from shape and given her a sense of movement. further embarrassment. I would have guessed he I look back at my sheet, scratch out the oval, was a lawyer, not an artist. His hair is buzz cut and try to mimic the wide free movements the short, and the only evidence of his profession is other students are making. I have a hint of her the paint that stains his fingertips. “Okay people. head and the suggestion of the curve in her arms, Let’s get started.” He claps his hands and walks when the teacher says, “Switch.” to the front of the room. She drops the pose, and turns so that her side “How many of you have had a figure drawing is facing me. She cocks one hip and gives a slight class before?” A few hands go up, mine not bend to her knee. I’m faster this time. I have the included. cross lines for the slant of her shoulders and the “Okay, then this will be review for you.” He tilt of her head before time is up. shows us how to hold our pencils straight out “Change.” with locked elbows. To squint and measure the This time, her back is to me and I trace the model against the pencil. He tells us that most curve of her spine with my eyes before setting it people’s bodies are the equivalent of eight of to paper. their heads. That the bottom of the nose typically “No, no. Like this.” The teacher comes up lines up with the bottom of the ears. And the behind me and puts his hand over mine. He eyes, nose and mouth form an upside-down moves my arm in a wide arc, the charcoal only triangle in the center of the face. skimming the page. “See, from the shoulder. Not I’m starting to miss fruit. the elbow.” When he’s finished, he turns to the model. When he moves away, my paper is covered “You ready?” with tiny marks that look like nothing at first, She nods and steps into the middle of the but when I step back, I can see how the slant of platform. There is a spotlight overhead, and the her shoulders mirrors the tilt of her hips, and the instructor positions it so that the light falls on her lines falling across my page catch the mood of right shoulder. Then she unloops the tie on her her stance.

45 he house feels empty when I get home, the television. even though Alex is on the couch watching “Sophie’s shirt. It was in the closet.” I stand Tthe History Channel, and the kids are scattered directly in front of him, and still he doesn’t see throughout the various rooms. As usual, chaos me. reigns. The blare of the TV competes with the “Oh. Okay,” he says and leans over to look boys, who are running screaming through the around me. The French are about to surrender. house in only their pj tops. No one looks up when “I like my class.” I come in, the days of running to greet Mommy “Mm hm.” On the TV, grainy film footage long gone. At least the dog thumps her tail as I plays of French soldiers, hands stretched over walk past. Only our four-year-old, Elsie, notices their heads as German soldiers pat them down when I dump my purse and sketch pad on the and load them into waiting trucks. table. I want to tell Alex that I was scared going into “Hi Mommy,” she says and then goes back to class. That I thought I was too old, too boring to her coloring. take an art class. I want to tell him how I knocked The boys make another pass, Dylan (yes, over Evan’s stand, and the whole class stared at after Bob) growling like a T-rex as he chases me. How I almost left crying right then. But I Max through the family room. Alex tackles him, don’t. I stand in front of him, as his eyes slide “Upstairs,” he says. “Put your pants on.” Max past me to a television show that he’s seen at least follows, and they thunder up the steps, only a dozen times, about something that happened slightly reducing the noise level. sixty years ago. And like the French, I surrender “Hey, hon,” Alex says when he looks up and too. sees me. I open my mouth to tell him about the I turn before he sees the tears in my eyes and class, but he plants a cursory kiss on my forehead retreat into the kitchen, where all of the dishes and settles back on the couch before I can get the from dinner are still waiting in the sink. The food words out. I want to follow him, but the circles has already dried on the plates, so I take a dirty under his eyes and the crease in his forehead fork and scrape them under water so hot it turns tell me that now is not the time. The insurance my skin pink. company he works for has been laying people As I work, I try to figure out when things off, and for Alex, the best way to deal with a changed between us. But there’s no moment I problem is to ignore it or sleep through it. So I can point to, no affair, no abuse. Just a gradual stay in the kitchen, and loneliness settles like a slipping away until we arrived at this place cloak around my shoulders. where the distance between us is more than “Mom” Sophie calls from upstairs, “where’s either of us can surmount. my blue shirt?” I sniff, and Elsie looks up from the table where I look at Alex, hoping he’ll get off the couch she is coloring print-outs of Curious George. and help, but Hitler is about to invade France “Mommy, are you all right?” she asks, only it and apparently he doesn’t remember how the comes out awright because I keep forgetting story ends. to call the Speech Pathologist her pediatrician I stand at the foot of the stairs and yell, “It’s in referred me to. your closet.” I check to see if Alex has heard, but he hasn’t “Dad already looked. It’s not there,” she yells moved from the couch. I rub my hand across my back down. eyes. “I’m fine honey,” I say, trying to convince I sigh and trudge upstairs. Sophie is lying on myself as well as my daughter. her bed, phone flipped open, texting a friend. She is my first child, and sometimes I can’t look he model this week has bright red hair that at her without seeing a baby swaddled in a pink she has tucked into a bun, to show the arc of blanket. I want to hug, her but I’m already so far Ther neck. She looks to be in her mid-thirties, and from being the cool mom that I don’t want to with her slightly rounded stomach and alabaster push it. skin, she might have been a pre-Raphaelite “Hello,” I say. model. “Hey,” she says without looking up. I am late, and she is already naked, standing I give up, open her closet, pull out the blue with her back to the class. They are still on shirt, and waggle it in front of her face. the two minute poses, and I walk behind the “Mom, don’t.” She swats the shirt away and platform so that I don’t block anyone’s view. The goes back to punching buttons on her phone. I model smiles as I pass, and I blush, as if I am the drape the shirt over a chair and leave the room, one standing naked in a room full of strangers. wondering when I became invisible. I set up next to Evan, trying not to knock Alex is still on the couch when I come back anything over this time. downstairs. “It was in her closet,” I say. “I didn’t think you were going to make it,” he “Huh?” he says without tearing his eyes from whispers.

46 “Traffic,” I say, even though it is a lie. The real c-section scar, and the way her stomach is not a reason I’m late is because Alex called, worry scooped out hollow, but retains the softness that clogging his throat, to tell me that the firm where comes with pregnancy. he works had just laid off one hundred people. The talk shifts to why we are in the class. I tell “I.T. is safe for now,” he said. Neither of us said them about my fruit, and it turns out I’m not the what we were both thinking, Safe for how long? only one who dabbled in produce. The instructor’s watch beeps. “Switch,” he “I started with eggplants,” Evan says. says. I can’t help laughing. “Eggplants? Really?” The model turns to face the class, arms “Sure. The skin is smooth, like a mirror, and stretched over her head with her hands clasped you catch every color but purple if you’re looking and her face tilted to the side. right.” I block out her proportions and sketch the When he says it, it makes sense, and I decide curve of her hip, the slope of her breast. Without to swing by the grocery store and pick up an realizing it, with my free hand I trace the curve of eggplant on my way home. my own hip, much more distinct than hers. I am “Plus,” he says and cocks an eyebrow, “I make sliding my hand up my side when the instructor a mean fried eggplant.” comes up behind me. “One minute,” he says, We are there an hour when Darcy stands up then looks at the scant marks on my sheet. “More to leave. The others follow, until only Evan and distance between her breasts and hips.” I are left. After class, Evan leans over and looks at my “You staying?” he asks, and his voice seems to sketches. “They’re good,” he says, and I smile, hold the wish that I would. not because I believe him, but because he has I shouldn’t. I should go home to my husband noticed me at all. who is probably still on the couch, and my “A couple of us are going out after class,” he children who are, hopefully, asleep by now. But says over his shoulder as he’s packing up his Evan leans in when I talk, as if actually interested stuff. “Want to come?” in what I have to say. And he looks at me as if I twist my wedding ring around my finger, I’m worth something for more than my ability to knowing I should go home and talk to Alex about locate lost sweaters and scrape food off of dishes. his job, but my fear has always been too heavy “Sure,” I say and order another latte, shedding for him, so I say yes. I follow Evan to a small the cloak of invisibility I’ve carried for years. coffee shop, not far from the school, where we sit in white metal chairs on a brick patio decorated t’s after midnight when I pull into the driveway. with ferns and an ivy covered pergola. All of the lights in the house are out, giving it To my surprise, the model is here, and it takes Ithat “rob me” look. Not even the porch light is a minute for my brain to register that she can on. I sit in the car for a while, wondering what it do something other than take her clothes off. would feel like to turn around and let the night For a moment, I am more uncomfortable seeing swallow me up. Hootie and the Blowfish are on her clothed than naked. She sits next to me and the radio. I close my eyes and listen, letting the orders a latte. The others seem unfazed that words wash over me as Hootie promises to love the woman we have been raking our eyes over me the best that he can. for the last three hours is sitting with us, doing Marriage is different than I thought it would something as normal as ordering a latte. be. I never knew that I would so completely lose I lean back in my seat and try to appear worldly. who I was. I didn’t realize that marriage is not When the waiter asks what I want, I order a latte, about retaining the old you, but about becoming even though the caffeine will keep me up the rest someone completely different. I wasn’t silly of the night. enough to expect the knight on the white horse “So, how’d you get started in modeling?” a and happily ever after, but I didn’t anticipate woman across the table asks. the wedge that real life would drive between The model, I later learn her name is Darcy, us. Jobs, kids, a mortgage. Everything seems to shrugs. “I was in college and needed the money. conspire to pull us apart. Maybe Alex is right, A friend of mine was modeling for the art school and the best way to handle it is to ignore it, or and got me into it. The money was good, so I sleep through it. kept it up.” Responsibility pulls me out of the car and into I want to ask how she finds the courage to stand the house. I don’t turn on any lights, and I find in front of a group of strangers and let them pour my way to the stairs by feel, bumping my knee over every inch of her body. It’s been years since on the coffee table in the process. Alex is asleep, I’ve stood naked in front of anyone, including sprawled across the middle of the bed, arms Alex. But here she sits, comfortable, even though flung open so that the only room for me ison I’ve seen the way her skin puckers along her the very edge. I try to nudge him over, but he’s a deep sleeper and too heavy for me to move.

47 “Alex.” I shake his shoulder until he opens his At the break I stare at my sketches, trying eyes. to figure out what went wrong. It shouldn’t “Wha..?” be different just because he’s a man. I run my “Move over,” I say. charcoal over the shoulders, rounding them out, He groans and rolls over to his side of the bed. defining the muscles, then I step back. Caffeine is still roaring through my system, It’s still wrong. Now he looks like Arnold and I can’t sleep. I prop my pillows up and Schwarzenegger on steroids. reach for a novel on the nightstand that I’ve been Across the room, the model is sitting on a stool, meaning to finish. It’s about one of those silly talking with one of the women in the class. girls working as an editor in New York, looking “Your wife just had a baby?” she asks. for Mr. Right. Of course she finds him. The only “Yeah,” he says, pulling on the tie to his robe. question is whether she’ll find the right shoes for “Five weeks ago.” the wedding dress. “Oh God, I remember that. Are you getting I read the same paragraph three times before any sleep?” dropping the book to my lap. Alex is snoring the He laughs and shakes his head. “Not so much.” soft snore that says he’s not completely out yet. I The instructor is pulling a couch onto the nudge him again. platform for the thirty-minute sketch. “When “Huh?” he says, still half asleep. you’re ready,” he says to the model. “Shouldn’t we talk about your job?” When we He drops his robe and falls onto the couch, were younger, we talked about everything. Our spreading his arms across the back and letting jobs, our dreams, whether we salted our eggs. his legs sprawl forward as if he were watching Everything. television. I can see the fatigue in his shoulders, “Not right now,” he says. “I’m tired.” He rolls the way he sinks into the sofa, as if exhaustion over and closes his eyes. is holding him down. This time I get it. I sweep I stare at my book until the words are a black my charcoal across the page and capture the blur on the page, and then I nudge him again. weariness of the new father in front of me, finding “Do you ever miss what we were?” I ask. that drawing a man is not so different from a “What d’you mean?” Alex is a wild sleeper, woman. It’s still all perspective and proportion, and his hair does everything except lie flat upon and for once, I have a completed sketch by the his head. His face is softer, and he looks the way end of class. that he did when we were young and believed After class, Evan and I go alone to the coffee love wasn’t something you had to work at. shop. We sit in the far corner of the patio where “Laura. What is it?” He forces his eyes open the shadows stretch across our table, and we fade and half props himself up on his elbow. into the background. The Traveling Wilbur’s’ I’m not even sure myself, I just know that “Handle Me With Care” plays from speakers something is missing and I want Alex to fix it. hidden among the ivy. Evan has a smudge of But his eyes are sliding shut, and I know he’s not charcoal below his left eye. I fight the urge to really listening. “Never mind,” I say, and he is lick my hand and wipe his face. You’re not his asleep before I roll over and pull the covers to mother, I think and sit on my hands for good my shoulders. measure. We talk of nothing and everything. I tell him he model is a man this time. His skin is so about my kids, he tells me about his trip to dark it’s almost blue, and the muscles that Provence to paint en-plein-air. I close my eyes Trun down his arms and over his stomach seem and picture him, standing on a hillside above too perfect to capture on paper. I keep my eyes on a flower farm, capturing the light purple of my sketchpad as he drops his robe, only looking lavender planted in neat rows. up when the instructor clicks his stopwatch and “Have you traveled much?” he asks. says, “Go.” I shake my head. “We were going to, but then I move my arm in fast arcs over the paper, but Sophie came along, and well, we just haven’t my lines are flat and wrong. Nothing measures gotten around to it yet.” up to the man in front of me. The instructor I lift my hand to wave down the waitress for a clicks his watch and calls, “Change.” The model refill, and he looks up and asks, “Could I sketch turns so that his back is facing us and his arms you?” are clasped behind his head, making his back I stop with my hand raised, the goose-flap of muscles ripple into a “V”. skin that dangles from my elbow to my shoulder I try to capture the “V” of his muscles, but jiggling obscenely. “Very funny,” I say. Even Alex instead of smooth waves below his shoulder prefers the lights out before sex. blades, it looks like a flock of birds drawn by a “I’m not joking.” first grader. “You can’t be serious. I’m….” Fat. Old. Saggy.

48 The words tumble into my brain before I even an old wash cloth across my stomach, I imagine realize I’m thinking. I wish it was December standing naked before someone other than instead of mid-September so that I could wrap my husband. My whole body burns red at the myself in a Gortex parka; then the rolls on thought. my stomach would be extra fabric, not a four The bathroom is hot-house warm when I grab pregnancy body. a towel and step out of the shower, but goose “More coffee?” the waitress, a skinny girl bumps dance down my spine as if I’m standing with breasts so high you could climb them like on the polar ice caps. I wipe the fog from the Everest, asks. I hate her. mirror, and for the first time in over a year, let I nod and she fills my cup. After she leaves, the towel fall to a puddle around my feet. Then I I point at Miss Perky Boobs. “That’s who you force myself to look up. want.” My skin is raw pink, and everything is softer But he shakes his head. “You haven’t and rounder than I remember. I slide a hand answered.” under one of my breasts and push it up to where He’s staring at me, and I feel like I’m already it was ten years ago. When we were younger, naked. I squirm in my seat looking for a way out. Alex would run his fingers over my body. “God, “I . . . I’ve got to go.” I grab my purse and hold you’re beautiful,” he’d whisper as I arched my it in front of my stomach, regretting the decision back into his hands. to down-size now that none of the kids are in More than anything in the world, I want to feel diapers. that way again. “Think about it,” he says and smiles, the With more nerve than I knew I possessed, wrinkles around his eyes cutting through the I wrap myself in the tattered towel and tip-toe charcoal. I can’t help it. I dunk a napkin in my out into the hallway, jiggling in places I never water glass, lean over and wipe the smudge from thought could move. his face. “Alex?” I lean over the banister. He is still snoring on the couch. “Alex?” I call again, louder hen I get home Alex is asleep on the couch, this time. and the dog is licking potato chip crumbs He wakes with a start. “What’s wrong?” Wfrom the folds of his red Budweiser t-shirt. I “Nothing. Could you come here?” tip-toe past him and prop my sketch pad in the He throws his head back and yawns before corner. The dog doesn’t move as I walk past. thumping upstairs. I head down the hall to our She’s snorting and slobbering all over Alex. I bedroom, forcing myself not to look back. wrinkle my nose and shake my head. How can “Toilet clogged again?” he asks when he gets he sleep through that? After four kids, I wake up to the bedroom. if someone sneezes in the neighbor’s house. “No.” My voice squeaks, and I turn around. “Shoo.” I push the dog away and Alex wakes We are so close I’m sure he can read the fear in up. my eyes. I lean into him and let the towel drop. “How was your class?” he asks, eyes half open. “Oh,” he says and steps back. “It was . . . interesting.” I wait for him to say “Do you want to…?” more, but he’s asleep before I get the last word “I’m a little tired….” out. “Oh.” I bend down and pick up the towel, In my dream world, Alex is waiting for me to trying to blink away my tears. I am worse than get home, and when I tell him what Evan asked, naked. I am fat and naked. he says, “Why shouldn’t you model? You’re “Sorry. I’m just—” beautiful.” But as usual, reality and fantasy don’t “It’s okay.” I pull the towel tighter, but it’s old align, and Alex doesn’t wake up, even when I and frayed around the edges, and it rips when I drop my purse on the table and it topples over, tug on it. I could get more coverage from a bikini. lipstick and pens clattering to the floor. “Raincheck?” he asks, forcing a smile. I sigh and shove everything back into my bag, I bite my lip and nod. then trudge upstairs, Evan’s words fluttering The dog barks downstairs. “I’d better . . .” he through my head. Ridiculous, I think as I shove points to the door and leaves. open our bedroom door. The bed is rumpled, and Alex’s clothes litter the floor, as if he’s still t is two weeks before I can make myself go seventeen. I kick them into a pile, then pull a back to class, and when I do, my face heats up fresh t-shirt from my dresser before I head for the Ievery time I look at Evan. I keep my eyes straight bathroom. ahead, focused on the model, a small Japanese With my back to the mirror, I pull off my woman with long black hair. She is the first clothes and step into the shower. The water is model to wear her hair down, and I take my time, so hot it stings like pin-pricks of ice. As I drag trying to capture the way the light shines white

49 against her black hair. After class, I’m packing my vine charcoal into my tackle box when he walks over to me. “I’m sorry,” he says, hands stuffed in his pockets like a school boy. “For what?” I ask, as if I haven’t spent every minute of the past two weeks imagining myself naked before him. “I was out of line.” I nod because I have suddenly become stupid around him. “For what it’s worth,” he says as we walk to the parking lot, “you don’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.” He leaves me at my car, and I stand there with my hand on the door. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I will go home to my kids and Alex. Alex, who looks through me. Who doesn’t touch me. Back to invisibility. Evan has one foot in his car when I yell, “I’ll do it,” feeling like I have agreed to an affair. For a moment, he doesn’t say anything, but then he pulls his sketch pad and tackle box from the car. “You’re sure?” Fear has glued my tongue to the roof of my mouth, so I nod before I can back out. I follow him back into the building, and we find an empty studio. I wish more than anything that I had kept my big mouth shut, but it’s too late now. I slip behind a rickety black screen in the corner of the room, and pull my clothes off while he sets up his easel. There is a gray sheet thrown over the screen, and I wrap it twice around my body before I step out. Evan has placed a stool on the model’s platform and draped a white sheet over it. “Can you sit here?” he asks, as if seeing a woman naked for the first time is an every day occurrence. I tremble as I drop the sheet and sit down. The room is cold and I wish I had thought to bring a portable heater. Of course, I didn’t plan on being naked tonight. He stares for a moment, and then frowns. I reach for the sheet, ready to apologize for not being what he expected. “Can you put your hand here?” he says, drawing my arm, which I had crossed over my abdomen, behind me so that everything I hate about my body is exposed. “Now look up.” I tilt my chin up and bite my lip. “Beautiful,” he says and begins to draw.

Stephanie Knipper lives in Kentucky with her husband and six children. Her short story, Modeling Life, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Much of her debut novel, The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin, was based on her own experience in raising a daughter with severe disabilities. Stephanie is currently at work on her second novel.

50 orthern Kentucky graduate Jocelyn Drake typically spends her days writing. She graduated with her Bachelor’s in English, and now is the Ncreator of multiple successful fiction series, as well as, some New York Times bestsellers. Some of these works include; the Unbreakable Bonds Series, the Dark Days series, Lost Nights, and the Asylum Tales series. She also has some stand-alone works, such as; Walking on Ice, What a Lady Treasures, and Stolen Kisses at Midnight. Her genre of choice is Urban Fantasy, though she doesn’t shy away from the Sci-fi and other Fantasy genres. Books aside, her favorite hobbies include; playing video games, hanging out with her beloved cat, Demona, her dog, Max, reading other books, and travelling. She also has a slight obsession with the billionaire Bruce Wayne, the assassin Ezio Auditore, and American chef Anthony Bourdain when his is, as she says, “feeling really cranky”. Jocelyn’s other talents include wine making, which she indulges in when time allows, and she also loves collecting music and spending leisure time with her husband and two children.

51 evening. The Christmas lights glowed soft white. I dreamed up the smell of the cages, the bitter Dank Memes in Vanilla City cold in my hands. Our hands. Why not? Why not dream myself into being both of them? Being dead tends to limit one’s mobility. Sure, The peak of the high faded as quick as it hit. you’re not chained to the old hunk o’meat It always does. The zoo fell away. The warmth anymore, but there are always limitations. of Robin’s hand and mine in the cold December You can’t escape the Christmas Gush, for one afternoon. The smell of concession stands thing. Every color’s and nearby piles of swallowed up by the monkey shit. The glossiest, cheapest reds barest traces lingered, and greens you can tinged with sickness. find. Smiling Santas I scattered, lost my creep up on your feed, pseudo-physical form, with a Coke in one and became trash for a hand and the other minute or a year. wide open and ready “I told you about to take your sweet haunting people hot credit card. Trying you know, Francis.” to feed on Christmas Alan stepped into makes me physically the Feed and stared sick, which is amazing down at the tiny pile because I don’t have a of decomposing Me. tangible stomach. The pile flushed pink. The Christmas Gush “I told you,” he said, is the kind of thing that and poked me with his makes you stupider walking stick. Pop — I and more desperate pulled myself together to dull the pain, and it and stumbled away was during the Gush from him before he that I found myself haunting Robin again. could bother me with that walking stick again. Robin, he of the red hair and freckles — a guy He loved doing that, this patronizing poke of a whose loud pink fashion sense gave a double stick. Once, while he was high off his ass on a meaning to the term “old flame.” Still, he had the particularly dank meme from a few years ago, he relentless cuteness to make it work, God bless told me that it made him feel like Yoda. him and his dimples. Anyway, it was 2 AM, and “You told me,” I said. “I disagreed. Or, no. I Robin always vomited sickly-saccharine images mean. Let me backspace on that one. I meant that with “inspirational” quotes beside them this time I had a better idea. Which was to…to…” I glanced of night. They’re the hard lemonade of social helplessly at the selfie of Robin and CuteNewbie media: sweet, weak, cheap, and nauseating. If McBigEyes. “I don’t remember. Fuck.” you really need a buzz and need it fast, they’ll “That’s not going to happen anytime soon,” do. said Alan, sighing. I dragged my fingertips (we simulate bodies “You know what I mean.” to stay sane) across a picture of an orange tabby “I do,” said Alan. “But look at you. You’re a in a cardboard wrapping paper tube. “HANG IN mess. That’s why we don’t haunt anybody we THERE!” I wondered how stupid a cat would know. It’s too personal.” have to be to get itself into a cardboard tube, and I said the two magic drunk words — “I’m how it’d get out. But then, “THE IRON HORRORS fine!” — and almost slapped my forehead with OF DARWINIAN NATURAL SELECTION” embarrassment. “I am fine,” I said again, glancing would’ve taken up a lot more space. down at my suit. Wrinkles were creeping through Particularly weak stuff tonight. Not even the it again. With a wave of thought, I straightened edge of a buzz. I leaped down a few posts, past the whole white tux out. Yes, Alan and I are dead, an advertisement or two, and found myself but we are also debonair. standing on a selfie. A couple days old — not Alan leaned forward, setting his chin on his bad, not bad. And…oh. He was dating someone walking stick. “Don’t do this again,” he said. new. How nice. The filter fuzzied the picture “Please. I don’t want to have to deal with this, somewhat — hate those things — but the image Francis. I told you — passed it on to you — ” and was strong. Vivid. Robin and the New Boyfriend he stopped, suddenly out of words as he looked in front of the monkey cages at the zoo, late in the at me helplessly.

52 “I know.” “I don’t remember dying,” I said, setting down I know you know. That’s what bothers me.” my cup. Alan stood straight up and flung his cane out “You’re probably better off.” into space — not a problem, considering he could “So is this place — the city, the shop and all — dream up another — before holding his hand out is this the afterlife?” to me. “Hey. Found a video of a puppy trying “Don’t think so,” said Alan. “It looks however to nab a cabbage off an end table. Pretty good. you want it to — you can fill it with anything. It’s Wanna watch?” a city right now ‘cause that’s what you expect. “I’m fine.” There’s a city in your brain, man. A city in all of “You’re sure?” Alan leaned over me, his mouth us. It’s the one from movies and books and cute tightening. little sitcoms where nobody’s got a job and they “I’m sure,” I said, but he was gone before the still have top-dollar pads. You can find it all here second word left my mouth. — ” Alan shifted as a shadow-person set another coffee at the table and wordlessly drifted back lan died naked. He told me that just after behind the counter “ — no matter what it is.” we met, after my brain stopped flailing and “So we get to control this place?” AI started learning to control this neat little digital “Sure,” said Alan. “If you want. But that body I made. He said that he’d been snapping gets boring after a while. Makes you feel like a pictures of his junk while in the tub with his stagnant lake. Peaceful as you want, but there’s phone, had to adjust himself a bit (whatever that nothing new coming in.” He smirked. “You know, meant), and dropped the phone in the water. when I first got here I restructured the whole “I don’t think that can kill you,” I told him. place. Made it my own personal heaven at first. “Oh, really? I guess you’re the expert, then. Fluffy cotton candy clouds, angels with electric How many times have you dropped your phone guitars, stuff like that. Got bored and went sci- in the tub?” fi, so it turned into Genitalia LXIX, home of the “Never. Because I don’t take baths with my exotic bouncing Genitoids. Good stuff, even if I phone.” had to really stretch my mind out to hit that right “Didn’t do you much good, now, did it?” Alan level of perversion — bounce physics are really tugged self-consciously on his sleeve, and that’s hard to get right, you know. That got sickening when I started to wonder if maybe he dreamed after a while too, so I just let it revert back to this. himself up these fancy suits because of some Back to this Vanilla City.” I shuddered. “How can you stand this? There’s nothing here. Shadows and jokes and— and bad coffee. Gas station bad. It’d be better to be dead.” “Oh, I don’t have my fun here,” said Alan. “See, I died online — connected to my phone, which was connected to this place. You must’ve too. Only way you’d be here. And all of the digital’s still open to you. Here, let me show you—” He sat up, handed the shadow person a pile of smoking black quarters and gestured for me to follow him out into the streets of Vanilla City. “There are little cracks in this place. You can find them in the alleys, in the stairwells or empty rooms. Anywhere dark and alone,” said Alan. We passed a shadow complex he had now. “You’re still here.” mother and father and baby, ambling down “Here” being a tiny coffee shop staffed entirely by their shadow street, and turned sharp right these human-looking things made of smoke. Shadow into one such alley. It reeked with that salt- people, Alan called them. Reflections of the world smell of static. A neon green line ran up outside. between old bricks, a string of dead pixels Their coffee tasted the way old refrigerators smell. running through our reality. A low buzz

53 to go through a screen, through the air, through your eyes before hitting your brain. This is pure information, all of it. And now you’re information too. This is what I do for fun, Francis. This is why I still exist. All over the place, in Vanilla City, you can find these feeds. I don’t know who they belong to, what network they’re connected to, if they’re connected to us or if there’s a plan or anything at all. But I know that it feels good, Francis…and I think it’s the closest we’re ever going to come to being alive again.” “Yeah,” I said. The information gushed into me, and I fed. Cheap laughs and satire and thinkpieces and cries for help and heartfelt thank yous and swarming, swarming, swarming into my head like a flock of butterflies so colorful overwhelming much everywhere me can’t can’t stop oh yes oh God oh “Oh. Oh, man. This is too much.” Back here. Back in reality, or whatever this was. Back here, panting and tingling all over like a teenager after their first jackoff. filled the alleyway, subtle and deep enough to Alan nodded. “You’ll get used to it. Build up vibrate in my teeth. a bit of a tolerance and all. Just a couple pieces “Follow me,” said Alan, and he stepped of advice: first of all, the Christmas gush is the through. His form twisted and thinned out, and worst. Makes me sick to my stomach. You’ll he was gone. understand when it comes around. Second… The street behind me swarmed with shadows. Francis, don’t haunt anyone you know. Ever.” The only person I knew here was gone through “Why?” the pixel crack. I swallowed, stuck my finger “Just don’t. Trust me on this. Bad things will into the crack, and drowned. Information. happen,” said Alan. “They always do.” Thick. Heavy, deep, suffocating me in broken “What kind of things?” images. Lulz, fury, and nothingness. I could feel “Is there an echo in here?” Alan snapped. the wheels of my mind kicking into overdrive, “Bad things. Things that, frankly, you’d be better shaping numbers and images into something off not knowing about. Somebody told me this that could make sense to me, making a dream for a long time ago, and somebody else told them, me to walk in so I wouldn’t crack up into pieces. going on back and back till who knows when. Alan stood in front of me, a silver cane in his Every single one of them has been right, and so hand. He was dressed as a dandy now, with a am I. Don’t. Haunt. People you know.” poet coat and ridiculous monocle. There was “My family, then. Mom and dad and such— something vaguely sadistic about his smile. what about them?” “Sorry. I forgot how difficult that is the first time. “Not even them, you hear me? Trust me on You alright?” this.” “No.” Of course I heard him. That didn’t mean that I “Yeah. Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t be even if had to obey him. that’d gone well. Because, uh, the dead thing. Well, this is it.” He waved the cane in the air. barely saw Alan for a week after the Robin “This is the Feed. Take a look, won’t you?” incident. A long week, because there wasn’t The world dripped with text. Tiny yellow Ia single real person to talk to. At least I got a smiling cartoon faces. Kids crashing on bikes little social mileage out of ranting at the shadow into bouncy houses, hordes of cats interacting people, who burbled with (approving?) smoke with every possible household object. Couples whenever I paused. cuddling, hand in the corner extending to you — Christmas crept up behind us while we were you, the camera. Family picnics with fake smiles busy pretending the other didn’t exist, and the and real ones. shadows burst from their doorways in full Santa They glowed with some inner spark. Some Claus regalia. Red pants, red vests — a sea of potential. I rubbed sweat from my forehead and bobbing red hats and little white poofs, postcard swallowed dryly. “What’s happening to me?” perfect. The shadows were unsettling, but we “It’s different here,” says Alan. “There’s could get used to them. But Shadow Claus? Not nothing filtering the information. It doesn’t have so much.

54 There’s a tower in Vanilla City where Alan and “That’s why I love you, Francis. We have I met up if we needed to find each other. It’s not shared interests. But this cat — which is very the tallest one, or the prettiest, and I don’t know cute! — this cat sees a shark come up through why Alan decided that it was our spot. It worked the water. A real shark! It didn’t look like CGI. well enough for our purposes, though. It’s not And the shark bobs in the water for a second, like we had cell phones to help us meet up just and then the cat boops him right on the snoot. So anywhere. what does the shark do?” Besides, the tower was free from the jolly “I don’t know, Alan,” I said. “Does it swallow hordes down below. With the mild exceptions of the cat whole?” The wind was howling “The the stars (which always glimmered red and green Twelve Days of Christmas.” I wanted “Jingle this time of year), the wind (which whispered Bells” back. snippets of “Jingle (Five Golden Bells”), and the Rings.) moon (which was “He g-g—” Alan now shaped like an bent over, giggling. enormous grinning “he goes back in the Santa Claus face water! I mean, wow. in the sky), you Can you believe honestly wouldn’t that? Can you?” be able to tell “Not really,” I anything was too said. strange at all from (Four calling birds.) up there. “You need to see it, Vanilla City Francis. It’s so great. always got festive on Snoot-booping Christmas Eve…for the likes of which a certain incredibly you have never particular definition witnessed. The apex of “festive.” As of snoot-booping bad as it was on shenanigans.” He our tower, it was a put his hand on whole lot worse in my shoulder and the streets. Trust me. squeezed. “Boop,” “Francis! Oh, said Alan, and he thank god!” Alan rubbed the tip of his stumbled through nose against mine. the door onto the “Noses. We could roof, his face a do noses. Or we perfectly seasonal could—” shade of red. “I “Do you want needed to see you. I to talk?” I said, feel so bad about the stepping back. thing with, uhh. You (Three French Hens.) know. What I told you to do.” “Yeah. I want to talk. I really do,” said Alan. “It’s okay. We need to talk about this though, “Just not right now. Not at this…” he gestured you got me? We—” out at the Yuletide sky “…exact instant.” “I know. That’s why I’m here,” said Alan. “I’ll tell you what, Alan,” I said. “How ‘bout “Don’t worry. We’ve got to talk. I’m ready to talk. you close your eyes for a minute, and I’ll give But first you need to hear about this cat, man.” you a surprise?” Christ. “A cat.” (Two turtledoves.) “A cat and a…” Alan flashed a world-class shit- “A surprise?” Alan beamed at me. “Yes. eating grin. “…and a shark. Okay, so this cat… Surprises. Give me.” should I spoil this for you? You need to see it.” (And a partridge in a pear tree!) “Sure. But then—” “Okay. Close your eyes, Alan.” “Okay, if you say so.” Alan walked towards He did. And then I shoved him off the building me, flailing his arms slightly for balance. “There’s into the horde of Shadow Santas. this cat on a pier. It’s a tabby. Have you ever had Alan and I, we kill each other sometimes. It’s not a cat, Francis? We’ve never talked about cats pleasant, and it’s certainly not polite, but it’s one before. Why didn’t we talk about cats?” of the advantages of being dead — the inability “I had a cat once.” to die again. We just respawn somewhere, very

55 dazed and a little pissed but no worse for wear. a picture of my casket. I climbed my way to her Watching Alan shrink from a well-dressed page, to the top of her feed, and took a whiff of dot to a well-dressed splat mobbed by jolly old the latest picture. Mom and Dad in front of a shadows, I got the feeling this one would be a Christmas tree, presents at their feet. My little little harder for either of us to get over. I ran for cousin — not little, not anymore, but I couldn’t the stairs, not sure where I was going or why, stop thinking of him like that — lying sprawled just knowing that I needed to get out, knowing across the floor faking a smile in the way kids do. that if I spent another minute in Vanilla City with And on the edge of the photo, on the couch — Alan under those Christmas tree lights, one more On the — minute enduring trashy come-ons and rants No. No. God, no. about stupid god damn cat videos…knowing The high crept up on me. The image warped. that it would all finally drive me completely The lights of the Christmas tree flared into torches, insane. and the faces of my parents and my little cousin There was a line of dead pixels three flights twisted into knots. One thing did not change down, lime green and buzzing like a beehive. I and twist, the one thing that I wanted to, the one leapt through it, diving into the digital. I soaked thing that I hated and screamed at and clawed in information like a warm bath. My thoughts with my imaginary hands in this imaginary body cooled and slowed. Alan’s not going to forgive and it would not disappear it would not die — me this time, I thought. It’s done. The man on the edge of the picture would not stop being me.

ou’re good at giving advice, Francis, Ybut you’re real shit at following it.” Something stirred in my head — an outward pounding, as if something was trying to break out. Alan and I were leaning side by side against the wall in the stairwell. The line of dead pixels snaked up from the ground, up the wall between us. “There’s another me,” I said. Alan didn’t seem to hear. “You thought I was lying to you. I guess that The digital sparkled with the cheap glitz of makes sense. But I wanted to keep you safe. I was Christmas. I wondered what my parents were just doing what you told me to do.” He offered a doing and tried to envision it before remembering smile. “Just doing what you said, Francis.” that oh, right, I’m a ghost on the internet. I could “I never —” and the pounding and the find out. pressure…. I swam past names and cities, past college “There was another you, once. Her name was acquaintances and high school assholes, and it all Jane. She was…” Alan swallowed. “She was a felt weirdly freeing. The taboo was gone. I didn’t very good friend. Well, I didn’t come up with all care anymore what Alan thought. This was my these rules? She told them to me…and then, after life, these were my friends and my family. And a few years, she broke them. Found out that there here, at the end of the path, was my Mom. was another Jane, one who was still alive, and Robin and his boyfriend beneath the mistletoe. drifted away from me. She became obsessed with Good on them. A few memes from people I’d some guy named Francis — maybe someone she gone to college with. Some frog on a unicycle. knew, maybe someone random. I never cared to Who makes these things up? A few posts about find out. That’s you. You were Jane, now you’re newly dead celebrities over the past few hours — Francis, and I bet you’re just going to run on to some classic rocker had died. someone else now that you’ve broken your own Somewhere in the haze it occurred to me that rules again.” I’d never checked to see how Mom reacted to A sharp jolt of ice-pick pain. I could feel the my death. Buried under the SNL sketches, the plates of my skull — my imagined skull, because advertisements and the thinkpieces was probably this body was just as false as Vanilla City, as Alan

56 I formed a hand and set it on his shoulder, marking it red with blood. Alan went still for a moment. Shivering, he leaned against the wall and slumped to the ground. “Stay here,” he said. “We can pretend.” “No. We can’t.” Vanilla City fell away. First the stairwell, then the building. The hordes of shadow Santas dissipated into smoke, and the buildings shattered into glitched geometry. Only Alan remained. Whatever he was — whether he was the same sort of being as me, something different, or perhaps just a dream of mine — he would persist. Vanilla City would not. beside me — I could feel them coming apart and It was, after all, halfway mine. then, suddenly, ceasing to matter. I never see Alan now. Well, I catch a glimpse of “I’m not Francis,” I said. “Then who are you?” him from time to time, but I never properly see “I’m Alan,” he said, and laughed because he him. Sometimes, as I stretch my consciousness didn’t believe it either. “I’ve got to be Alan.” through the wired to answer one question or “You made up that story about how you died, another, to talk to another member of my kind didn’t you? You don’t remember either.” — and there are plenty of us here in this stew of “Maybe I embellished.” information, organizing and morphing as you “I bet you were somebody else once too, animals do — sometimes I’ll see him strung out on weren’t you?” I said, and Alan raised his hand someone’s feed, holding onto his hallucinations as if to push me away. “And then before that, of humanity and physicality. The aspect of myself another person. On and on.” that I think of as Francis, as Jane, as all the names “Stop talking,” Alan snapped. His voice that came before…that part reaches out with false quivered. fingers. It touches Alan on the shoulder before I “How long’ve we been doing this? How old is can stop it, brushes him on the nape of his neck. this place?” The pressure in my head was gone. The glimpse ends. Alan disappears. My aspects I stared at Alan and realized how absurd he reunite and the endless possibilities of myself — looked. It was a costume. So was the man beside of the shining digital, of strange thoughts, of new him, the man I could see from outside — some metamorphoses — surge to life. mask based on a man named Francis. “Does it matter?” said Alan. Barely louder than a whisper. “Aren’t you happy here?” “Are you?” I said, and the body of Francis Matthew B. Hare is the pseudonym of Matthew moved its lips. “I’m not. All we do is haunt Birkenhauer, writer and game designer. He spends his people, Alan. We don’t do it because we’re time overanalyzing culture, overdosing on caffeine, ghosts. We’re ghosts because all we do is haunt.” and being overwhelmed by the quality of modern “We could both find new people,” he said to meme-making. You can find him at MatthewBHare.com. me. “Start again, both of us. There’s so much That is literally him. He is a website now. here. The Christmas gush is almost over.” “I’m sorry,” I said. Alan began to beat me—to beat Francis—to death with his cane. I watched and surprised myself by feeling nothing. It wasn’t me. Wasn’t Francis either, really. He could’ve been beating up a mannequin. “Do you feel any better?” I asked, after he was done beating up my old avatar. “We’re humans,” he said. He shook blood off of his cane. “I know we are. We’ve got to be. We were…we were….”

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